


A Learning Experience

by FreckledSkittles



Series: 2020 Barisi ~Spooktober~ [3]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Aquaphobia, Banter, Barisi Creatures Bingo, Developing Relationship, M/M, Merman Sonny Carisi, Minor Injuries, Transformation, bc of course it is, except its late lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27765163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreckledSkittles/pseuds/FreckledSkittles
Summary: “Do you have a word for love?”Sonny eyes him again. So honest, so green, so vivid. “Just your first name.”Sonny and Rafael love each other. They don’t need words to say it, although they do enjoy it.
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Series: 2020 Barisi ~Spooktober~ [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975462
Comments: 12
Kudos: 18





	A Learning Experience

**Author's Note:**

> This is my largest project in a loooooooong time. At least when you compare the number of chapters to the word count (30k in case you didn't check) but would you believe me if I said I didn't mean for this to happen? Because I definitely wouldn't
> 
> Anywayyyyy lmao I had this idea for a while (merman Sonny and human Rafael) but I didn't do anything about it until the Barisi Fiction Archive planned a Creatures Bingo and I was like "oh I can totally write this for October, I can make it so that it gets into the collection" and one month later.,.,,..,.,  
> a gal can dream 
> 
> Thanks goes out to: soul_writerr and StillNotMeShh, for reading this when it was at its halfway point to help make sure this made sense when I got writer's block; and sarahcakes613 for reading this as a full fic when I finally finished this. All three of you helped me and I am so thankful for all of it and beyond <3 I love you guys!!
> 
> CAUTION WARNING for some descriptions of minor violence: when Sonny and Rafael turn into the opposite species, the process is initially detailed and it might be a bit unsettling for some ppl
> 
> I hope you all finally—FINALLY—enjoy

Humans and merfolk cross paths more regularly than others may realize. Scuba divers are often guided by designated ambassadors of the merfolk, and any marine work involving netting or boating is done in areas that are untouched by both humans and merfolk. Occasionally there are conflicts between the two species but for the most part, the peace is maintained and kept by both sides. Sometimes, a merperson will end up washed on a shore, swept up by the tide but rehabilitated by humans, and returned home once they are well. And sometimes, a human will fall overboard only to be rescued by merfolk and returned to shore.

Sonny has only heard the stories, mostly from other members of their neighborhood, of human encounters via shipwrecks or accidents. He never thought he would find one himself, struggling to stay above the water and failing to keep afloat. He and his sister Gina had been swimming on the outskirts of their city collecting shells for a gift for one of the elders when a flurry of bubbles swarmed above their heads. A human-like form was floating above them, arms limp above them as he sinks. They must have fallen in, perhaps from a bonk to the head if their lack of panic is any indication.

“What’s that?” Sonny asks. Gina is already swimming towards it; Sonny follows after her, both of them swimming faster when the figure starts sinking more. The person looks to be dressed rather nicely, in the type of clothes Sonny would expect a human of great importance to present himself as, but they might be doing more harm than good. They aren’t clothes designed for swimming.

Gina puts her arms under the human’s and hauls him up to the surface. Sonny pops up beside her and gently raises the human’s head. He can’t be any older than Sonny is, pushing through his remaining teen years. His eyes are closed and there’s a knot forming on his temple. Humans don’t have lungs that can fluctuate between oxygen intake and water filtration, as far as Sonny knows, so he may have some clogged in there. Before he can react, however, Gina is lugging him over her shoulder and paddling to the beach. They’re inside the buoys for their shell search and it won’t take long to reach the shore.

There’s a building on stilts that sits over the water and has a boardwalk that extends well out into the water for the perfect chance to see or meet merfolk. There must have been a fancy event the man was attending, if his attire is any indication. Sonny can hear people chatting in the building—a house, he thinks, but it’s not always inhabited. The people inside may know where the person is or where he came from. If he could reach them to ask, he would, but a pair of closed doors separate them from the crowd and the building itself is not easily accessible from the water. They would need to get out to do that, and merfolk cannot remain outside of water for long without being harmed.

When they reach the shore, Gina gently lays the body on the sand and inspects him. Sonny comes up to the human’s other side as Gina pumps lightly on his chest with the sole of her hand. When the human doesn’t stir, Gina frowns and dips back into the water. “Keep an eye on him,” she instructs Sonny. “I’m getting Bella and Teresa.”

“How are they gonna help?” He asks. “We’ve never had this happen to us before.”

Gina scowls. “Well, what else are we supposed to do?! We can’t leave him here, and the only human contact is in that house on the dock.” And with a splash of her tail, Gina dives through the lapping water and swims off.

Sonny turns over so that he’s sitting on his tailbone and stretches out his tail. Being a merman that resided in what humans called the Atlantic Ocean, he’s come to enjoy the landscape of different places on the coast. He’s not built for river water but he’s met merfolk who can go between the two and talk about the sights he hasn’t been able to reach. Images of buildings that reach the sky and glow silver in the gleam of the sun dwell in his mind when he hears the stories. According to the river merfolk, they don’t live very far from that land, but to see it is too far from the saltwater that Sonny has lived in for years. To try and go there now would be risky without the proper precautions.

The sunlight feels nice on his skin and tickles the golden orange of his scales. Sonny flaps his tail lightly at the heat beating down and the cooling drops of water that splash over him. Leaning back on his hands, Sonny shuts his eyes and takes in the moment. He’s met humans a few times, mostly through boats passing through and the occasional cluster visiting the shore. But he can’t remember ever being so close to one before. Maybe the human has been to the place with the tall silver buildings and the river water. Maybe he’s from a land even further in, where the ocean water can’t reach him and the beaches don’t have water.

Sonny’s eyes fly open when he hears choking from behind him. He turns to face the human, who’s leaning over to cough and heave out any water that got in his lungs. When he’s done, he flops against the sand with a groan. The human is dressed well, his clothing a soft purple and one piece of pink cloth knotted around his neck. Under the flaps of his jacket, Sonny can see two parallel straps going down his sides and latched onto his pants. He hasn’t seen that type of attire before or heard of anything like it.

The human starts to open his eyes and turns his head, and Sonny is met with vivid green eyes. He still looks a bit dazed, but when he spots Sonny sitting beside him, he scoffs under his breath and shuts his eyes again. “I thought handsome men on the beach were in poorly-written erotic novels,” he quips.

Sonny can’t help but laugh, even if he doesn’t quite understand the reference. He likes the sound of the human’s voice above anything else—smooth and deep, a bit rough, though it may be a side effect of falling into the water. “How are you feeling? Do you remember what happened to you?”

“Not really. I was attending a birthday party for a friend.” He shifts and grips his head with a grunt; Sonny instantly moves so that his tail is behind him. Merfolk are not strangers to the human world, but some humans still get surprised at the sight of a tail at the end of a human torso. “Damn. What did I do?”

“My sister and I found you in the water.” The person glances at him with caution; Sonny feels exposed like he’s being studied, almost akin to visiting a medic. “She went to get help.”

“Good. Someone should be able to direct me back to my friend’s house. You can’t miss it.”

“Yeah. Right. Just…” Sonny adjusts his posture so that he’s not fully leaning over the person but is still blocking his line of sight from his tail. He keeps it as still as he can with the water pushing against it. “Try not to move, okay? We don’t know if you’re hurt yet or not.”

“Alright, we have a Temporary Resin to help us until he’s awake,” comes Gina’s voice. The breaking of something—or, rather, someones—over the water’s surface tells Sonny his sisters have arrived. Gina flops onto the sand and stops when she notices the human awake and growing more alert with each word. “Oh. Well…” Gina sighs, her tail flopping beside her, and crosses her arms. “This is more complicated now.”

“Is that a great idea?” Sonny asks in a low voice. “How long do those last?”

“Wow,” Bella whispers, her eyes shining at the sight of the human. “You guys really did find one.”

The human must have caught sight of the scales because he jerks up and away from them as soon as Bella speaks. Sonny watches his eyes flit between the four of them: Sonny and Gina sitting on the beach, making their tails more visible to his eyes, and Bella and Teresa peeking out of the water but the family resemblance most likely connecting the dots. “Oh,” the human mumbles, jolting when Sonny reaches out to him. “Oh. Shit.”

“Don’t panic,” Sonny tries to soothe him. “We wanna help.”

The human nods, swallows, and then falls back, passed out once again. It was a good enough attempt.

“Weak,” Gina grumbles.

Sonny splashes her with his tailfin. “What do you expect? He fell off the dock and passed out!”

“At least he’s not awake,” Teresa points out, shifting up so that she can reach into the pochette thrown over her shoulder and pull out a vial. “It’s just as effective being smelled.”

“We can’t do this any other way?” Sonny frowns.

“Not unless  _ you _ wanna grow legs for a day and go on a wild flounder chase on land.”

Sonny huffs and backs away as Teresa opens the vial and lets it waft under the human’s nose. It should take effect immediately, if he remembers correctly, but the resin will keep the human in a temporary merman form for at least a week. Until they can talk to him and find out his story, and if there’s no way for them to reach the land, their only chance of helping him is by turning him into a merman. It’s not uncommon for humans to be rescued and cared for similarly by a merfolk society, especially to their areas. Hopefully, their first time will be as smooth as all those times.

* * *

Unfortunately, and simply put, it doesn’t.

Getting the human to their citadel once his fins grow was the easy part. Bella and Sonny took special care to bag his clothes and keep them away from the seawater by covering them in carriers made from expired clamshells. Teresa and Gina, as the oldest of the siblings, bring the human to the medbay for observation until he wakes up. And when he does, and the Carisi siblings head over to check on him, they are advised to keep away for a few days. The human—who has yet to identify himself—is hostile and irritated, to put it lightly. Sonny feels bad that the human hasn’t adjusted well to the situation but there’s not much else for them to do until the situation calms down.

Two days later, Sonny and Gina are called into the medbay by the doctor caring for the human and one of the elders. The human is sitting on a cot shaped like an oyster shell; when he spots Gina and Sonny swimming in, he scowls and turns away from them. The scales of his tail are a shiny teal that flickers to a deeper green when the light shines over it. The fin at the end of the tail is one solid fin, a lighter hue than the scales and translucent. Sonny would be mesmerized by the color if he and Gina hadn’t been summoned by the elder. They bow their heads out of respect when they stop in front of them and wait to be addressed.

“Regina, Dominick,” the elder greets them, nodding in return, “do you have the story for how this human came to our city?”

“Sonny and I were searching for shells to make a wreath for Elder Paula, and a body fell from above,” Gina states. She eyes the human, who doesn’t turn to face them but whose tail is flicking with irritation. “We had strayed out by the boardwalks, and we didn’t realize it until we saw the body falling. The boardwalk is long and the building that was there wasn’t accessible to us, so we were unable to get in contact with them without using Temporary Resin. Our only option was giving it to him so he could at least be safe.”

“You were acting with his interests in mind?”

Gina and Sonny nod. “We were. We didn’t have a lot of time and we didn’t know if he was hurt or not.”

“He fainted twice,” Sonny adds, “so we were concerned. We didn’t know anything about him but we acted quickly so we could help him.”

The elder hums in understanding; the medic waves to her patient. “Aside from some memory loss and head pains, he hasn’t sustained any serious injuries, ‘she states. “We are reaching out with our contacts closer to shore to see if we can reach family or friends to inform them of his location until he’s well enough to travel.”

“So he’ll be alright?”

The medic nods and smiles. “Everything is treatable.” She sighs and floats to the other side of the cot so she can face him. “Unfortunately, there’s not much else we can do to make your stay comfortable, sir. The Resin will last a few more days, but your loved ones will know you’re safe. The best we can do is make the most of the situation.”

“He has refused to swim,” the elder points out. “Even though he has been cleared medically, he has not taken any steps to adjust to the situation.”

“I’m not refusing,” the human snaps, the first thing he’s said in a while. “I said I  _ can’t _ swim.”

The elder looks at Sonny and Gina as if the human hadn’t said anything. “Since you two are the ones who rescued him, I’d like you two to be his guides for the merfolk’s way of life. Regina, I understand you have prior duties at the perimeter, so you will have nighttime duties for the time being. Which means,” the elder focuses on Sonny now, and the piercing gaze he shoots the young merman is almost terrifying to look at directly, “Dominick, you will spend most of your time with our guest. Make sure he’s safe and doesn’t get overzealous with our land. He is still human, and this is not his world.”

With the information shared and some more advice given, the elder and the medic leave Gina and Sonny with the human. Until the Resin wears off, which will be in a few days’ time, the human is free to roam the city as long as he returns to the medbay at night. Judging from the disgruntled look on Gina’s face, Sonny predicts he’ll be spending more time with the human than initially guaranteed. And she confirms as much when she says so and starts to leave, giving a weak promise to see the two of them later tonight.

“You sure?” He asks her as she swims to the passageway. He was the most extroverted of his siblings, so talking to strangers was never a problem, but even then, he never wanted to stomp over his sisters. “We can work out a routine or something.”

“Oh, yeah,” Gina scoffs, nodding to the human. He’s settled for lying on his side now, still facing away and laid out on the shell cot. “If I stay when he’s snippy, I know we’ll end up fighting.” She leaves before either of them can say anything else, and then Sonny is alone.

Not entirely alone, but with the silence in the room, it feels like he’s the only one here. Sonny flicks his tail so he’s floating through the water on his back and hovers between facing the human—er, temporary merperson—and keeping his distance. He thinks about where to start the conversation—his name would be nice, maybe his profession, or life experiences, or family or friends. Anything that could maintain an easy conversation. He shouldn’t push it, he reminds himself, but he should keep it light so that the human/temporary merperson can feel comfortable.

“So,” Sonny begins, mentally working through each topic to land on, “what’s your name?” He glances at the human for a reaction, but he can’t read the back of his head and his tail is deathly still, almost like he’s sleeping. “I don’t think we had a chance to introduce ourselves, but…you can call me Sonny. It suits me more.”

The human stays silent. Sonny eyes the scales of his tail again, the teal glimmer drawing in his attention once more. There was an ancient tale that said the scales of a merperson’s tail said a lot about who they were. He’s forgotten what teal meant; his family was made up of purple or yellow scales.

“Do you wanna take a tour of the city while you’re here?”

No response. Sonny turns around fully so he can see if the human has fallen asleep. If anything, it looks like he’s spacing out, his mind distracting him from his predicament. Sonny doesn’t blame him—it can’t be easy to wake up with little to no memory of recent events and as a different species than he was born as. He would feel just as alone and confused and frustrated as the human is feeling.

“I’m eighteen. How old are you?”

Perhaps they could relate to one another, but Sonny shoos away the thought. Pity and any attempts to reconcile the situation when the human is still hostile would definitely not blow over well, even with him.

So Sonny settles for sighing and floating above the human, making sure to flick his tail in the water. The feathery ends spread out as he flexes his tail, the golden shine of his scales bursting through the wave of bubbles that rise from the movement he’s making. Sonny does a flip, making sure to give himself enough space so that he doesn’t hit the human, and twirls as he settles on his back again. His sisters, especially Bella, have more experience with human legs than him and he’s glad for it. They never interested him when there was so much more he could do with a tail.

“If you’re trying to entice me, it’s not going to work.”

That was a start. Sonny turns around and floats closer to the human but still keeps at least an arm’s distance between them. “Hm? Did you say something?”

The human glares at him. The same green that Sonny had seen yesterday is laced with anger—not unsurprising, but still startling with the intensity. “Don’t make me repeat myself. I’m not in the mood to play with you.”

“I’m not playing around.” Sonny settles on the ground so that he’s at least somewhat level with the human. “Merfolk and sirens are two different species.”

The human huffs, his tail swatting out in sync with his hand. “That’s a lie. Do you know how many pranks river merfolk have pulled on New Yorkers?”

“New Yorkers?” It takes Sonny a moment to figure out how he knows that name. The city of giant silver buildings—the ones that the river merfolk near them love to visit and always have endless stories to share. “Oh! Have you been to New Yorker?”

The human cocks a brow. Confusion shouldn’t look so good on humans, but the puzzled features always make Sonny giggle inside. He always associated confusion with merfolk, particularly when it came to human experiences, so seeing it on a human’s face is amusing. “Now I know you’re joking.”

Sonny frowns. “About what?

“You have an accent stronger than any other New Yorker I’ve met and yet you don’t know what the city is called?”

“But I  _ don’t _ know what it’s called. I’ve never been.”

“Oh come on!” The human props himself up with both hands. “I know we aren’t close to Manhattan, but New York City can’t be  _ that _ foreign to you, even out in Montauk.”

He recognized the last name—it must have been where the human had been before falling into the water—but the other was foreign to his ears. “Man. Hat. Tan. Did I say it right?”

The human sags into the shell bed with a groan. He doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the time Sonny spends there, and he barely interacts with Gina when she shows up later. Sonny wondered if there was anything he could have done differently, but humans just might take longer to adjust to a merfolk’s way of life. Not everything would be natural to understand or do or even have knowledge on. It was all a learning experience that took time to develop.

* * *

Rafael. The human’s name is Rafael.

When Sonny meets with him the next day, the human makes an effort to speak first and reveal the first bit of information about him. His name is Rafael, he turns twenty in four months, and he goes to school in a place called Massachusetts, but he’s originally from the city with silver buildings. He doesn’t say how he fell in the water, but Sonny decides it’s a minuscule fact in comparison to the situation. It’ll only be a few more days before he returns to the human world. He may as well make the most of an experience that he will likely never have again.

Rafael. Sonny says it a few times after he hears it to familiarize himself with the sounds. Ra-fah-el. Eventually, Rafael uses his tail to send a flurry of bubbles in his face to cut him off. Sonny is happy he’s at least using his tail, even if it was against him.

“Hey, that was really good!” Sonny grins. “You used your tail for something.”

“Just barely,” Rafael points out, flicking his tail for emphasis. The turquoise shade glimmers so prettily, Sonny is mesmerized by the shine of the scales. “I tried to swim before but I only ended up falling out of this shell thing.”

“Do you know how to swim as a human?”

“That’s the problem.” Rafael swishes his tail out and scowls. “I never learned.”

Sonny scoots closer. Rafael eyes him with a warning to still keep his distance. “No one taught you?”

“They tried to, but as a kid, it scared me too much. And I didn’t live near water anyway, so it wouldn’t have been useful if I did learn.” He pauses, runs a hand over his scales, his fingertips brushing over the curved edges. “I…am not fond of this sort of thing. Being underwater without an easy escape to the surface. That’s partly why it took me so long to talk to anyone. You merfolk live like this every day. You’re  _ born _ for this. I can’t manage a single day without legs, and you’d think I was threatened by some sort of underwater beast.”

Sonny frowns as a deep well of empathy rises in his chest. It makes sense why he would be so reluctant to interact with anyone, much less pleasantly, but it doesn’t hurt any less. Sonny wishes things could have worked out more in their favor so that Rafael didn’t have to be trapped here any longer than he wanted or needed. The terror of waking up to his fear, the absolute helplessness that must have overtaken him, Sonny can only imagine the feeling. “I’m sorry we brought you here. If I had known, I would have taken the Resin myself and found a human to help you.”

Rafael sighs and shakes his head. “I don’t resent you for it. I understand the decision you made with your sisters. I would have taken in a merperson if I found them washed up and wounded on a beach.” He smirks, the corners of his mouth curving up ever so slightly. “That has to be just as bad as waking up in a medbay underwater. I only hope the transition after I return human isn’t as painful.”

“Oh, for the lungs?” Sonny grimaces when Rafael nods. “Yeah, I’ve heard that it only happens to humans taking on a merperson form. We don’t have the same issue when we take a human form.”

“I’m sure the pain of growing legs from your tail makes up for it.”

Sonny shrugs, “I guess. I’ve only gone human once though. I like swimming too much.”

“Really?” This time, both of Rafael’s eyebrows raise. Surprise looks cute on humans too. “Is it that much better?”

Sonny’s grin turns mischievous quickly. And judging by the reluctance and regret on Rafael’s face, he must have caught on as well. There was only one way to prove how much better swimming with a tail was than walking with two legs. He’s had to do it for his sisters (who still don’t fully believe him or understand), their neighbors (who find him odd for not being as curious with the human world as the rest of them), and just about every merperson he’s come in contact with. And now, he has a chance to do it for a human.

And so Sonny carries Rafael to a clearing a few blocks away from the medbay. The seaweed and kelp around them will help encourage him to lift off the ground and “into” the water with his tail. Just like every young merperson learned, their tails were vital to their identity and survival as a species. They were more than pretty scaly things that could entice humans with each glimmer in the sun or every bath in the moonlight.

Sonny asks several times if this is okay, if Rafael wants to learn how to swim with a tail and if he wants to back out, and each time, Rafael shoos him on or asks him to continue. He’ll commit to the lesson, but Sonny reminds Rafael that he can back out at any time. Sonny gently sets Rafael down on the ground and plops down across from him. Being in more open waters that aren’t held back by walls, Rafael’s hair moves freely in every direction, dark strands floating over his forehead and waving in the blue depths.

“The first thing you wanna do,” Sonny begins, “is flatten your tail out.” He demonstrates this by leaning back and stretching his tail out to its full length. His tailfin curves up and inward, a trick he learned from his sisters for an extra boost in whatever direction he was aiming for. Rafael mimics him, though his tail wavers a bit in the water, floating up and down like a buoy on the surface. The single fin at the end of his tail is at least curved in like Sonny’s. “The flatter it is, the easier it’ll be to get into the water.”

Rafael nods and adjusts his tail. His form is a bit awkward, nothing that can’t be fixed with experience, so Sonny doesn’t correct it.

Instead, he gives him a big smile and an encouraging nod. “Yeah, you got it, just like that! The next part is a little harder, so watch me.” Sonny flexes his tail down, not unlike a whale, and propels himself upward. A few more strokes and he can swim, gliding through the water as easily as a gull can fly in the air. Sonny stops moving his tail and lets himself sink to the bottom. “To lift yourself up, you wanna use your tail and sorta wag it to get yourself moving. Staying still takes more balance, so I want you to just work on getting up off the ground.”

It takes a few tries, and a few more demonstrations, but eventually, Rafael pumps his tail straight up and then down, and he’s able to keep himself in the water for a few seconds. He lets out a surprised yelp as he does and falls back to the ground. His face glows red as Sonny flips and cheers.

“You did it!”

“That was hardly an accomplishment,” Rafael huffs, but his smile is represented in the sound of his voice and the look of joy on his face. This was progress for him, and Sonny couldn’t be prouder.

“It’s all a learning experience, trust me. It took me a few tries to get it right. Even if it doesn’t look good, you’re still doing it.” Sonny settles back down among the kelp and sighs, momentarily returning to a serious persona. The next step would require more concentration but also ask for more from Rafael than initially planned. Sonny doesn’t want to trample over his boundaries or overwhelm him, especially when he’s doing so well. “How do you feel? You wanna go on?”

Rafael chuckles. “As long as the next lesson isn’t performing flips, I think I can make it.”

Sonny smiles back, excitement bubbling in his chest at the eager energy in his tone, but holds back from voicing anything. “Nah, that’s advanced material. This is just basic swimming in place—or floating, as we call it. You just,” he props himself up so that his full form is stretched and flexes his tail in an easy motion to keep himself upright and bobbing in place, “move your tail a bit to keep yourself up. It’s easier when you learn with someone else to help hold you up.”

Rafael snorts. “That’s what we’ve been doing, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes and no.” Sonny drops beside him again and holds out a hand. Rafael eyes it, the hesitation and caution returning to his features as if it had never left. “Physically, it’s easier to do. But you don’t have to do this if it’s too much.” And with that, Sonny’s hand retreats to his lap out of respect. He will only go as far as Rafael wants. Sonny may be the mentor for this moment, but he does not make decisions without full approval from Rafael.

The silence is easy between them: Rafael keeps his head bowed and his hands folded together, Sonny sits with his tail folded politely beneath him in an attempt to not overcrowd him. It isn’t a bad thing, to stay in such a deafening quiet, but essential to the conversation. And then, with a clearing of his throat, Rafael reaches out his hand, palm up in a silent invitation. The words are unsaid but meaningful all the same: he will accept Sonny’s help and ask for it in equal silence.

Merfolk are known for having low body temperatures. Their scales provide most of the reasoning behind it, but the habits of sunbathing also aid in the explanation: they need assistance in maintaining a high temperature. Sonny jolts, however, when he takes Rafael’s hand and is encompassed by pure warmth. Rafael is warm, almost hot against his palm, and tender. Even as a temporary merman, he maintains a steady wave of it. His palm is rugged like he uses his hands a lot—Sonny wonders what for. It must say a lot about him. He suddenly wonders what his hands mean to Rafael, if the thin webbing connecting his fingers means anything, if he is even having thoughts about it in the first place.

Sonny doesn’t say anything about the warmth. Every time he thinks about commenting on it, his brain jumbles the words and erases them from his vocabulary. At the very least, and with a few more retries than the last time, Rafael learns to float on his own in the water. His arms are just as warm when, in his celebrated relief that he’s finally done it, he relaxes and almost drops to the bottom again and Sonny scoops him up to prevent him from falling. Rafael blinks up at him in olive tones and jade edges, looking just as lost as Sonny and just as confused about what is going on. But he is thankful, and Sonny’s heart flips as well as he can.

* * *

When Sonny next meets up with Rafael, he has to go to the coral shelves on the outer edge of the city. Gina had shown Rafael some techniques to impress Sonny with the next day, and it was at both his sister’s and their guest’s insistence that Sonny went to the shelf to witness it for himself. He was barely past the gate before he saw the human swimming above the coral, his tail propelling him upward and helping him curve inward. Sonny grins as Rafael zooms out from the flip and flicks his tail to help him straighten up. The movements are a bit jerky when he comes back up but he still follows through with the motion and stays upright. In comparison to his swimming yesterday, he must have been practicing this well into the night and well before Sonny showed up. For someone who recently confessed to not being able to swim, it’s impressive.

“How long have you been going at this?” Sonny asks as he plops down on a rock stretched over the cliff’s edge.

Rafael dips down, wavering a bit as he sits up, but he keeps himself upright. The smirk on his face is all the evidence Sonny needs to know that he is extremely proud of himself. “About an hour or so. I practiced all last night.”

“I hope you made it back to the medbay in time.” He stretches his tail out over the edge of the rock so that Rafael can sit beside him. “You looked good out there though! Gina’s mastered tricks like that better than anyone else in our family, so if any of us were to show you the ropes, it’s her.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. I wouldn’t have been able to do as well if you didn’t show me how to swim.”

Sonny blushes at his words and looks away. He wasn’t quite sure what to call the feelings swirling in his chest and gut ever since he had left Rafael yesterday. The jade of his eyes hadn’t been able to exit his mind since he rescued him a few days prior. His voice was a melodic tune that rumbled in a fresh tenor. And he was a human. No matter what, Sonny should remember that fact.

But Rafael is enchanting. He speaks with the style of a man with high social status. He looks like a sculpture of pure beauty, from the slope of his nose to the dull point of his ears, in the curve of his lips and the shine of his eyes. Sonny liked viewing humans from afar, and to interact with one in such proximity is like wanting to court someone for marriage.

Rafael clears his throat and straightens up. “I’ve, ah, been working on swimming faster as well.”

“Really?” Sonny perks up at that and pushes off the cliff. Rafael follows suit, if a bit stiff and with a slight lean forward, but joins him in floating above the coral shelf. “How fast can you go?”

“I’m not sure how to measure it,” Rafael eyes the open water in front of them like a challenge, mulling over the expanse of sand and plant life waving in the water, “but I can always show you.”

Sonny doesn’t answer with words. He simply pushes forward with his tail and is off, swimming parallel to the cliff and the sand below. He smiles when he hears Rafael join him, able to keep up with a slight delay. Sonny turns so his back is level with the sand and slows so he can hover under Rafael. His hair floats above his forehead delicately, pushed up from the water he staggers through but not sloppy or tangled. Merfolk often forget to care for their hair, since staying in water typically negates any need to keep it untangled, but some take more care of it than others. Sonny wonders if Rafael had been toying with it earlier to get out any knots or tangles, if he used a Venus comb or half a cowrie to do it or if he simply reached a hand up and shook his fingers through the strands.

Right when they reach a plain of shells, those abandoned by mollusks or broken off from used ones, Rafael turns and dips so that he is under Sonny now. Sonny rights himself just in time to see the sly smirk on Rafael’s face as he propels himself just that much further. The teal scales of his tail catch the light from the sun above, a line of sight unbroken by city structures, and highlight the grooved surfaces and odd shapes of the shells. Sonny gains some speed to push ahead and use his tail to merge it with the orange reflected back to him. And each time they wave their tails, either in one large motion or in tiny staccato ones, the reflected colors clash together and weave between the shells.

Some of the yellow light cast by Sonny’s scales falls on Rafael’s skin. The tone of it is warm, a clear contrast to Sonny’s, and the golden lights shimmer across it. The reflected dots look like stars across a summer night sky, captured on a canvas of a turquoise sea and emerald suns. The only word Sonny can think of is beautiful. He follows the juncture of his tail and abdomen, up the flat plane of his belly and the soft patches of curly hair across his chest, to the prominence of his collarbone and the blazing fire in his eyes. Rafael is a human, but he looks ethereal, a being of magic brought down to roam the seas for a curious merman like Sonny.

The notion is ridiculous. To think that Rafael is only here for him, in a matter of days no less, and with so little talked about between them. It was an apparent joke among humans that merfolk fell in love hard and fast and sudden. Love was a human word but the meaning was not lost to merfolk, and as it became a common term among merfolk society, the phrase’s deep cuts began to form. Merfolk were particular about who they ended up with. They did not label others based on their partners’ identity. It was natural for mermen to be together as much as it was natural for mermaids to be with them and for mermaids to be with each other. Human society had yet to reach a consensus on the topics, so perhaps they’re even, for now, Sonny muses to himself.

Either way, he becomes too distracted by his thoughts that he ends up dropping to the seafloor and falling on a pile of shells. None of them are sharp enough to hurt, thankfully, but the skid across the sand isn’t pleasant when there are hard remains of mollusks rubbing against his skin and tail. Sonny stretches his tail out and huffs when he hears quiet chuckling. The chuckling quickly turns into laughter when he focuses his gaze on Rafael.

“Aren’t you supposed to be good at swimming?” Rafael teases, settling beside him in a slow drift down.

Sonny scowls and splashes a flurry of bubbles in his face. The offended sputter he hears behind him makes up for the distraction he had caused. For now, Sonny will settle with the thought that Rafael is just as interesting as any other human.

If only he can convince himself.

* * *

When Rafael returns to his human form, Gina joins him at the shore to make sure he’s alright. A friend who had been with him the day he fell off the boardwalk waits with them so that he can finally return home. Sonny watches from afar, unable to say goodbye to the human or approach him. They had spent a good portion of the last two days swimming and exploring the merfolk’s city. It wasn’t like the days with other merfolk, gliding through beds of seaweed and weaving between coral shelves. And when they weren’t swimming, Sonny was teaching him how to read the ancient texts of the merfolk. It had been years since the language had been used, but it was still merfolk tradition to understand their origins and culture. Rafael was bright and smart and well-spoken. The way he picked up on the language from a reading standpoint was impressive, especially with the various dialects and deviations.

“It’s just like our languages,” Rafael had pointed out. “Some of them sound or function the same.”

“Do you speak a language different from English?”

They spent the rest of the day speaking Spanish. He didn’t notice Gina passing by until he got home to his sisters’ teasing jibes. He had a friend for the first time in what felt like a long time, someone who could talk to him about everything and nothing and never grow bored or uninterested in him. Hanging out with Rafael was a breath of air Sonny never knew he could take. He never thought a human could ever be so curious.

And now he’s gone.

Sonny leaves when the Resin starts to wear off. He knows Gina will take care of the scales that fall off the meat of his tail to properly bury them, as is tradition when the scales fall off. It feels too personal to witness it.

* * *

Ten years later, Sonny is—as the humans would say—on the run.

The city he had lived in is gone. Merfolk were pushed out of their homes and either relocated in human-designed homes that did not accommodate for their free-roaming needs or excommunicated from the rest of their clans and cities and tribes and left to die in the middle of the ocean. Sonny’s parents made sure their kids had escaped the reaches of the humans while they played along with the relocation measures. And from there, when they were discovered two years later, the sisters and Sonny were forced to separate. He hasn’t seen them since. He doesn’t know if his parents are alive. He roams the eastern coast of the United States, alone and ostracized by a species merfolk had once been so fascinated with.

It’s all a learning experience in the end. Humans are no good anyway.

Sonny has learned a lot since his nomadic journey across the coast. He expanded his understanding of English through scraps of paper polluting the water and the rare looks into on-shore locations without being seen. He learned how to move at the same pace as a boat patrolling the waters for creatures like him. He discovered the desperation of the merfolk and the lengths some have taken to defend their oceans or fight for their old way of life. Without realizing it, he has found out how long it takes for someone to forget a person whose short time could have had a lasting impact had mankind decided to leave merfolk alone.

The general geography of the east coast is just as well-known to Sonny as the streets of his old city. He’s heard several different accents, from the chilly waters of Canada to the sunny beaches of Miami. He got a chance to see New York City, but his distrust and ever-growing discontent for humans ruined the enjoyment he might have had. He returns to Montauk and Fire Island for childhood memories he never realized he needed. He returns to Maryland most often to grab a bite to eat when the scraps of what’s left for merfolk are not enough. 

He can keep up with boats by maintaining the same steady pace as their propellers and engines, although he has yet to learn how to outswim one. Which is how Sonny ends up on a beach—he can’t remember where, his head is banging and the world around him is spinning—sprawled out and chest heaving, fresh from a narrow dodge of capture and assimilation. He shivers at the chilly breeze that ghosts over his skin. Cold. Humans were warm.

Sonny grunts and tries to roll over but only ends up curling in on himself. He’s only out of breath, he tells himself. All he needs is rest. Just one little nap and he can return to the ocean. Never staying in one place. Doing just enough to survive. Forever displaced and lost, a true child of the sea.

So he closes his eyes.

* * *

The water around him is stiller than the steady pull of the ocean tides. There are more human sounds around him. Sonny scrunches his eyes shut even tighter; he knows he has to get off the beach before he’s caught but he wants to rest. He’s been swimming more than usual lately—from humans on boats, from natural predators, from other merfolk who have returned to more animalistic ways of survival. He could do with some rest and a break.

“—wakes up, we’ll administer the—”

“—wanna be responsible for any anger this thing—”

“—not call them ‘things,’ Nick? You know better—”

Sonny fully opens his eyes now. There’s no sand beneath him. Through the water surrounding him, he can feel a strong surface, something metal and flat and cold. There aren’t gulls or birds soaring over him. The familiar smell of saltwater isn’t as strong as it should be. A feeling of dread creeps up his neck and tail: something is wrong.

“He’s awake,” says a calm voice—a tenor, rich in nostalgia and steady in its tone. “Mike, fill a syringe.”

The surface beneath him is a shallow container used to contain merfolk who are unclaimed by society or the ocean and turned human as a result. The syringe can only be the serum that will be injected into him and permanently turn him into a human. The seawater surrounding him is only for his survival as a merman. If he wants to escape, it will have to be with his life on the line—something he’s had to do for years now.

Sonny acts on the first impulse that comes to mind; he bangs his tail against the metal tray in an attempt to push himself up and roll over. Almost instantly, two pairs of hands grab his arms and hold him against the tray. Sonny gives a shout and wriggles even more; even if he doesn’t have any contact with water once he gets out, or if he empties whatever amount of water is surrounding him, anything would be better than being turned into a human.

“Relax, alright?” Someone snaps to his left, their hands digging into his skin. Sonny seethes out a response in Merlic, the language of the merfolk long ago. He doubts any of the voices he heard can understand it, but he has refused to speak English for four years now and he isn’t going to return to it now. “We’re here to help you.”

“Help” is a loaded promise. Sonny flaps his tail to scoot further down the tray. More water splashes out and falls out of the tray. His scales ache from the depleting water but escaping from these humans is the one thing on his mind. If he can’t get out from the sides of the tray, he can try it from the bottom.

A pair of arms, a third person unrelated to the four hands surrounding him, clamp around his tailfin and pin him down. The grip feels taut and unrelenting in holding and keeping him down, adding to Sonny’s struggles. The solid thumps of his tail ring out around him, the only noise he picks up beside the grunts of the three people surrounding him. At least he’s putting up a good fight.

One of the humans, the one to his right, curses under his breath. “Is he feral?”

“No,” the person at the end says, “just angry.” The voice sounds so familiar, if a bit older than the last time Sonny had heard it, and he cringes at the memory. He hasn’t thought of that person for years and he hopes he’s wrong in thinking he’s here.

Something soft but coarse wraps around his tail at the base of his fin and closer up to his midsection. Sonny snarls when he realized it’s a restriction to keep him in place. The hands on his arms stay on him so he continues to struggle, even as his breath goes ragged and his pants become desperate gasps for air and freedom. Maybe he can break free if he weakens the straps enough. The sound of footsteps circle him, the hands to his right are replaced, and then a needle comes into view. Sonny thrashes even more and swears in Merlic as he pulls his arms away as much as he can in the limited space the tray provides.

“Just do it, Mike!”

“I can’t, I could nick something. If it doesn’t go into a vein, it can hurt him.”

Sonny grunts and tries to force his tail against the binds but it only writhes and sloshes even more water out. He should have reserved his struggling—the itchiness of his scales from the lack of water moistening them is uncomfortable to the point where the slightest movement of his tail is painful. So he relies on his upper body for his escape plan. He tries to make eye contact with any of the three men trying to control him long enough to inject the serum, eyes wild and threatening and as menacing as he can manage. The man on his left and the man holding the syringe don’t pick up on it. But the third one, the one who had pinned his tail down and now stands to his right to hold down his arm, makes eye contact.

“Sonny?”

He can’t deny it now. After ten years, Sonny has found Rafael. The same Rafael who fell into the ocean at a Montauk country club and was cared for by a group of merfolk for six days. The same one who swam with Sonny and picked up Merlic like it wasn’t his first time speaking it and asked as many questions as he could form, always speaking over himself to find out more. The same one who held a curiosity Sonny used to associate with merfolk before their excommunication from humans.

Sonny looks at him, older but still Rafael in the shape of his nose and the shocking green of his eyes. He spaces out trying to decipher the different colors amidst the emotions swimming in them: realization, shock, remembrance, disbelief. This is real, Sonny wants to say, just as much to reassure himself as it would be to confirm it for Rafael, but the English evaporates off his tongue. And even if he did, he would be cut off by the needle pressing against his skin and injecting the serum into him. Almost instantly, his arms go heavy and he lets out a short groan when a flare of warmth rushes through his body. 

“Finally,” one of the men says as they finally back away. Sonny can’t turn to see which one of them speaks. His eyes are heavy and he tries to get one last look of that forest green haven before he drifts off.

* * *

Legs. He has legs.

Sonny has been staring at them for a good five minutes. They aren’t what he expected—not because he hasn’t seen them before, but because the sight alone is so…foreign to him. The limbs themselves are long and thin, reminding him of strands of seaweed when viewed by itself. The knees are bony and larger than he would have imagined. There are too many toes. And he has no idea how to use any of it.

Sonny had awoken in a bedroom, furnished with a desk and dresser, splayed on a bed with sheets that felt like the inside of empty scallops. The door was shut, but amicable chatter had been seeping in ever since he woke up. There was sunlight streaming through white blinds that bristled at the slightest breath of wind. He couldn’t smell the ocean, but he could sense it, maybe not nearby but definitely not far away. If he knew how to use the legs he now had, he would bolt to it and dive in for some sort of normalcy.

His sisters used to joke that if anyone were to cry upon becoming human, it would be Sonny—and he always agreed. Sonny embraced his identity as a merman just like the humans embraced their humanity. He loved swimming, he loved his tail and the orange scales that could turn to yellow if he turned it to the light at just the right angle. He never saw a need or want for legs. He can’t even remember the last time he had used them, if it had ever happened at all.

But even so, when Sonny wakes up to a discovery of legs, he simply lays on the bed and stares at the ceiling, accepting that he has been turned into a human for good. He doesn’t know where he is or what will happen to him. He doesn’t know how to use his legs. His only hope is that whoever captured him stops stalling and gets whatever they want with him over with. It’s boring to be human and he has done nothing to garner their attention to keep him here.

Except, perhaps, Rafael.

There’s a knock at the door, and Sonny barely has time to sit up before the person is entering the room. A woman with brown hair pulled back and glasses perched on her nose walks in, notebook and files in hand. She smiles when she sees him; Sonny just stares.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” she says. Her eyes dip down to his legs for a brief second. “Would you like something to cover yourself?”

Sonny glances at his waist. He doesn’t see anything wrong with him—well, aside from the human anatomy that replaced his tail—so he shakes his head. Shouldn’t they know what he should look like without a tail?

The woman nods and pulls the chair out from under the desk over to the side of the bed. There’s something official about her, from the way she carried herself across the room to her posture when she sits down. Sonny is suspicious of it instantly. “My name is Olivia Benson. I help run an organization focused on aiding and rehabilitating merfolk who are injured or otherwise displaced.”

“I’m not injured,” Sonny says, “or displaced.” It must have been years since he last spoke a full sentence of English. It doesn’t feel right anymore to use but he doubts she knows Merlic.

Olivia makes a face akin to a grimace, though it’s subtly masked and replaced with the professional persona she walked in with. The papers in front of her, extracted from the file she brought in, she uses as props to emphasize each point she makes when she’s not reviewing them. “You were unresponsive. You were and are severely underfed. You aren’t registered as a merfolk relocated to human land.” She shrugs. “Those circumstances are the reasons we work to serve merfolk.”

Sonny scoffs. “Is that why you turned me human?”

“You aren’t human. We used the same Temporary Resin designed by merfolk to alter your current state so we can evaluate you. We would need specific certifications to keep you as a merman and do it that way, but…” Olivia falters, and a bit of her facade slips. The caution creasing her frown, the trepidation and hesitation gleaming in her eyes paint the picture perfectly: what they are doing—what they did—is illegal. “Currently, merfolk are not seen as individual entities. They are considered beasts, which labels them as property the same way a zoo animal would.”

Anger flares up in Sonny. Right when he was starting to think about liking her, she explains a part of his life that he’s been living for the past ten years. “Yeah. I don’t need the history lesson, thanks.”

Judging by the ferocity of her stare, the attitude is unappreciated. “Merfolk deserve to be treated just like humans. There’s no basis to support otherwise.” Olivia stands and adjusts her papers into the folder. “One of my coworkers says he had a rapport with you. He’ll be around in a few minutes to help you get used to using your legs.”

“I don’t need—”

“You’ll be here for a week. Whether you want to or not, you should get used to your situation and make the next week bearable for all of us.” She softens just a bit before she leaves, standing by the door and hand resting on the knob. “We’re only here to help as much as you’ll allow us.” Without indulging his protests, or even looking back, Olivia shuts the door on her way out. If Sonny knew how to use his legs, he would storm after her and slam it shut.

The irony of the situation is not lost on him. Sonny can shut his eyes and remember, if he focuses long enough, the amount of grief Rafael gave him when he was eighteen. It plays in his mind as if he was remembering it from a past life: not quite real, not quite fake, equally confusing. He should have known better than to trust a human, but he didn’t mind Rafael or his endless questions. It was never permanent, and yet when Gina brought Rafael to the shore at the end of the seven days, Sonny wanted to bring him back and have one more conversation, one more race over the coral shelves, one more chance to spend time with someone he could relate to despite their different backgrounds.

He shouldn’t have gotten attached, he tells himself. But maybe he should have said goodbye. It could have stopped whatever headache he was trying to give himself now.

Sonny jumps when the door opens again and frowns when he recognizes the person standing in the doorway. Rafael looks vastly different from the last time he saw him—Sonny hasn’t seen him with two legs before. At the end of his teenage years, he was a bit gangly but still solid. Ten years later, he is a column of warm skin and jade eyes that spark. He stands like he’s someone important, and with a mind like his, Sonny secretly hopes he is. He is not dressed in the same fancy suit he had been discovered in, but the worn knitted sweater over the collared shirt still accommodates a keen eye in color coordination.

Rafael stays in the doorway for a moment before he steps into the room and closes the door behind him. When he closes it, he lets out a long sigh and leans against it, arms behind his back. Sonny follows the outline of his body, the soft curve of his belly, the strength of his legs. He probably walks fast and talks faster if his thighs are any indication.

“I wish we could have reunited under better circumstances.”

Rafael’s voice is a melody Sonny never wants to stop hearing. He swears at himself for being so weak to this human, even after so many years and only a few days of interactions. His sisters had teased him a few times for crushing, but he never saw the feelings as anything serious. Perhaps they had a reason to mock him—Rafael is just as enchanting as the last time they met. And given the hostility Sonny has developed towards humans, it can’t be because of his species.

Rafael takes a step forward, eyes wandering over the bed and the dresser and the window. He looks like he’s trying to distract himself but he hides it well. Sonny wonders if they both had experiences that forced them to hide what they were truly feeling from outsiders. “But I would be lying if I said I’m not glad to see you again.”

“Are you?” Sonny asks before he can stop himself. He doesn’t mean to sound so angry but the fury from earlier is unfortunately crossing over to Rafael. “If this is how you show it, you can leave me out of it.”

Rafael frowns. “I wasn’t trying to look for you. I never thought I would run into you again, honestly.”

Sonny tries to get comfortable on the bed; the legs he has flop awkwardly on the bed as he lays flat on his back. A thousand questions float to the forefront of his mind but he can’t decide where to start. There was a time where he wished to reunite with Rafael and see how he was fairing, but that time has long since passed. “That’s a little obvious. You’re a human. I’m not. Why would we meet again?”

“I’ve heard stories of merfolk and humans reuniting after a close encounter. And maybe because I knew we weren’t living in the same area, I doubted it would happen to us. But I…” Rafael turns his head away before he finishes what he was saying, “I held out hope that we could be different.”

“More than we already were?”

Rafael shrugs. “What’s ten years between acquaintances?”

Sonny can’t help but roll his eyes and sinks further into the bed. “If that’s what you wanna call it.” He waits for a reply and never gets one; Sonny realizes that Rafael is staring at him, his gaze puzzled yet critical. Sonny tries not to squirm under its severity. “What?”

“You’re much different,” Rafael points out.

“It’s been ten years,” Sonny counters.

“That’s not what I mean. There’s a difference between changing over ten years and changing over fifty years throughout the span of ten years.” Rafael crosses his arms and leans against the wall. “Unless you want to prove me wrong, I think you align more with the latter.”

Sonny pushes himself up to glare at Rafael, who barely even flinches at the negativity directed at him. He shouldn’t be so angry at the human, but how is he supposed to react? They spent a short time together when they were younger and as friendly as it was, it shouldn’t define them now. Especially with the circumstances that have brought them together. “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

“No, you don’t. But by choosing not to answer, you’re proving me right.”

“You know that for sure?” Sonny’s anger boils even more when Rafael only shrugs. “Well, if you’ve already answered for me, I guess there’s not much else for me to do for you! What’s the point of being here if I can’t even make my own decisions?!”

Rafael’s gaze darts down to his legs for a brief second. Sonny hates the glint that flashes in his eyes, curious and yet somehow understanding. “I’ll teach you how to use your legs tomorrow when you aren’t so hostile.”

“Oh, right,  _ I’m _ being hostile. Takes one to know one, I guess.”

Rafael’s smile is like poison. He doesn’t share anything else before he leaves, but the look he gives Sonny says enough: he can be as irritated as he wants and Rafael will never send it back to him. It’s ridiculous, bordering on downplaying Sonny’s feelings, nearly offensive at how much he knows Rafael is right. Maybe he’s been given the benefit of the doubt, but even if he were, Sonny still knows just how different he treated their last interaction when compared to their current situation. Human or merman, he and Rafael had shared a bonding moment that helped them develop as individuals despite the short amount of time they had. And it’s been soured by Sonny’s experiences unrelated to Rafael except by species.

Perhaps there’s a reason for it. For now, Sonny just closes his eyes and hopes he can rest long enough to gather his strength and fend off his concerns.

* * *

“Alright, let’s try this again—”

“I know how to walk.”

“You keep on saying that but you aren’t showing me you do.”

Sonny’s knees buckle and he trips, but he somehow manages to stay aloft. He grips the crook of Rafael’s elbows like a lifeline that is his only hope of survival. The past thirty minutes or so have consisted of Rafael goading him into standing and Sonny failing to do anything besides that. Standing on his own is not what he has trouble with—his legs feel too long and the entire addition below his waist feels like his upper body was taken off his tail and put on a random half. But he can at least stay still. Sonny can only manage one step per leg with Rafael’s assistance, but anything more than that is near impossible without a tremble or a loss of balance.

Rafael has been patient with him the entire time, never showing frustration and offering ways he can do better. He hasn’t let them talk about anything unrelated to learning how to walk since he arrived and had tossed a random pair of clothes on the bed before either of them could say anything. Merfolk never saw the need for clothes that weren’t decorative or ceremonial; humans put too much weight into their appearance, he supposes.

“This isn’t working,” Sonny seethes. His right leg stays steady but the left one is threatening to buckle again. When Rafael takes a step back, Sonny’s hold on his elbows tightens. “Isn’t there a better way to do this?”

“‘Stop complaining’ is always an option,” Rafael fires back. He smirks at the irked stare Sonny responds with. “What, did you not think of that? You’ve put in way more effort to complain than you have for trying to walk.”

Sonny huffs at that. “It’s not exactly easy to do.” He tries to move his left leg and manages to get it to stay in place, without faltering or wavering in his stance. He tries to move closer when Rafael backs away, but the human keeps an arm’s length between them. Sonny wavers back, then forward, and his knees knock together. “Don’t leave—no!” Rafael lets their hands separate, and Sonny is left stumbling forward after him. His legs move more like he’s been pushed than he’s walking on his own accord. But it’s not a complete fall, and Sonny at least stays standing upright when he collides into Rafael instead of bowling over.

Being this close to him, Sonny can smell a roasted brew of something earthy and an aroma that can only be described as heavy—coffee, he realizes. It’s curled in Rafael’s clothes and reaches out in smoky tendrils, enticing Sonny to try the caffeinated drink himself. Rafael looks up at him and merely offers a small smile. “Good effort. You’re one step closer to doing it on your own.”

“Like I haven’t been doing it on my own for the whole time we’ve been doing this,” Sonny grumbles. He isn’t trying to be uncooperative—Rafael simply makes it easy for verbal sparring. The only appropriate way he can respond is by firing it back with equal intensity.

Rafael tilts his head, a gesture that shouldn’t be as endearing as it tries to be. Sonny ignores the affection bubbling in his gut that urges him to be nicer than he has been. “Are you confident enough to prove that?”

Sonny’s hands curl into his arm and are enough of an answer for Rafael, whose smirk simply widens and who, thankfully, doesn’t say anything further. They continue practicing into the afternoon—Rafael keeping an arm’s distance between them and Sonny taking bigger steps. The distance isn’t anything significant, but it’s enough for Rafael to step further back each time Sonny makes progress. He tries to address how much he’s done when he’s sat down on the bed and Rafael is preparing to get them some food, but the only response he gets in return is a smile before he leaves the room.

Sonny takes a short moment to debate whether or not he should practice moving around on his own. He steadies himself by pressing his fists into the bed and then uses it to push himself up. His legs wobble but stay flat against the cold hardwood floor; his left knee stays steadier than his right, but when he moves the right leg, the left one starts flinching. Sonny takes a deep breath and, keeping his arms out to help himself balance, moves his left one. The way to the front door is daunting but manageable if he can move like this.

By the time he reaches the door, both of his legs are trembling and his breath comes out in rough pants. Sonny presses a hand against the wall beside the door to regather himself; his chest hurts and he shuts his eyes. He can hear chatter outside, neither of the voices sounding like Rafael and at least somewhat like the two other people who had helped Rafael capture him. Once he steadies his breath and the throbbing pulse in his thighs is diminished to a dull ache, Sonny opens the door and peeks out.

The bedroom he’s in leads to a living area with wide bay windows at the opposite wall and a familiar sight of an ocean brushing against the sand. Sonny ignores it for now and focuses on the two people sitting on the couch. If his fuzzy memory tells him anything, they could be the two who had helped hold him down and inject the serum into him. There’s a bitterness rising in his chest at how casual they seem to act, both laid back against the couch and talking amicably between one another. Their backs are to him. Peeking his head out, he can see a door with glass panes that shows a staircase going down. He could easily move along the wall, make it down the stairs, and out the building.

The ocean isn’t far, but he’ll need to go a few blocks to get there. Hopefully, he can make it there without gathering any suspicion, but he wants nothing more than to be back home in the sea. Sonny slips out the door and closes it quietly behind him. The men don’t look at him; there’s a television broadcasting a program in front of them that is hopefully loud enough to hide his movements. With his hand flat against the wall, he shuffles along toward the exit on the left. He listens intently to the two men sitting down in case they hear him and picks up on their conversation in the process.

“I mean, how long will it actually take?” One of them asks. “Rafael always says he has the most experience with merfolk, but I don’t trust his instincts on this.”

“Well, Liv and I talked about it, and she made it sound like it would be a month or so,” the other says. Sonny’s leg nearly gives out but he keeps himself upright with a press of his fist against the wall and a sharp inhale. “But that’s only the nomads and free spirits who have remained in open waters. The merfolk trapped in human facilities will take much longer to get out.”

“I hope so. The laws move faster than us.”

“Have some faith, Nick. We’ve done a lot—”

Sonny is thankful that the large stride he takes closes the gap between him and the door leading to the staircase. He doesn’t turn to check on the humans one last time, but he manages to slip through the door and into the stairwell. Sonny presses the door closed and leans against it to steady his breathing and rest his legs for one moment. Walking with something to keep him balanced makes walking much easier, so he’ll need as much strength as he can get to walk down stairs. He doesn’t even know where to begin with that.

Gripping the railing and standing at the edge of the top step, Sonny debates how he’s going to make it down. There’s a landing and another set of stairs going down, so he’ll have to be smart about how he goes down the first time to make it down the stairs a second time. He tries to inch his feet over the step, literally scooting himself off the step, but he nearly lands on the digits—toes?—at the end of his feet and leans forward when he lands on the second step. That won’t work; he’ll have to go for plan B—lifting one leg and putting it on the next step. Sonny holds on tight to the railing and grabs his right thigh so he can guide it into the air and place it on the step. His left leg follows after without the guiding contact and makes it to the next step without so much as a flinch. Sonny can’t help but smile to himself at his accomplishments. Who knew walking could be so rewarding?

Sonny uses the method of moving the right leg to the step first with a guiding hand on his thigh three more times before he can do it without assistance. However, by the time he reaches the last two steps, the door at the bottom opens and two voices break the silence, one of them belonging to the human he had been meaning to escape from.

“I’m not trying to give him trouble,” Rafael says. “I’m trying to do my job.”

Sonny puts a foot back on the step, scrambling a bit when the other follows. He just figured out how to go down; how does he go up?

“Are you?” A second voice, this one unfamiliar, asks him. “Your job here has never included this much hands-on interaction.”

It sounds like the two voices are coming up the stairs. Sonny turns and instantly trips over a step, falling up the stairs as his legs fold underneath him. He lets out a rushed breath and pushes himself up despite the aching burn in his palms. Maybe he can crawl his way up; Sonny starts to move up the stairs by pulling himself up and letting his legs drag lifelessly behind him.

“We both know why there’s trouble from him, but I’m not going to argue with you about whether it’s justified or—Sonny?”

He freezes. The voices were at the bottom of the stairs he’s sprawled out across. He can feel their eyes boring into him. Sonny looks over his shoulder and offers a small wave. “Hi. I was exploring and, um…”

Rafael, holding a brown paper bag, frowns at the explanation; next to him is a lean woman with light brown hair and a gaze that pierces right through him. When he speaks, she smirks and walks up a few steps so that she can offer a hand to him. “It doesn’t look like you got very far,” she teases.

Sonny gives a sheepish laugh as he presses his weight into the woman. She holds him up like it’s not a problem, even with the plastic bags she holds in the hand not gripping his waist. “Yeah. Legs are confusing.”

“I think the stairs are a bigger issue, if you were able to make it this far.” She helps him step onto the next step and ease himself up the stairs. Rafael, silent, is heard walking behind them. “I’m Rita, by the way. We never got a chance to meet last time.”

“Last time?” Sonny looks at her.

Rita nods. “I was the one who picked Rafael up when you and your sisters helped him at Montauk ten years ago.” A wave of guilt rushes over Sonny; he tries not to physically react as she continues. “I wanted to thank you, but your sister said you didn’t wanna say goodbye.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want to. I…” Sonny stops himself from continuing, suddenly hyper-aware of both Rita’s and Rafael’s stares watching him. His sisters had asked him why he didn’t join Gina at the shore when Rafael left but he never gave them an answer. He never thought they would assume the worst, let alone share their suspicions with Rafael or Rita.

When he doesn’t answer, Rita steals a glance at Rafael over Sonny’s shoulder. “I guess that’s something for you two to talk about.”

Rafael huffs and grabs the door for them, greeting the two men in the room with disdain for not catching Sonny’s escape trick. Sonny almost feels exposed when Rafael calls it what it was—an impressive, if failed, escape—despite what he had told both him and Rita. The other men—Nick the more talkative one, Mike the broader one—barely say anything in response, grabbing their lunches when Rafael sets them out. They’re more focused on talking with Rita, who sets Sonny down in front of a small round table close to the couches but set to the side with two other sets of dining areas before she supplies her own verbal quips.

Sonny watches Rafael hand out everyone else’s food before turning to him. Rafael brings out a styrofoam container from the brown paper bag and offers it to Sonny. “Do you still eat crab?” Rafael asks. When Sonny nods, he sets the container down in front of him. “Fresh from the harbor.”

“Thanks.” Sonny opens the container to find two crabs and a small bundle of crab legs with the meat still intact inside. He uses his hands to snap one of the legs in half, muscle memory helping him break it so he can suck at the meat inside. He can feel Rafael’s stare boring into him but part of him is focused on eating. Sonny tries not to slurp as Rafael, now finished handing out lunches, holds what must be his lunch and lingers by the chair across from Sonny.

“Do you mind if I sit with you?”

Sonny shakes his head, too occupied with gnawing on crab meat to speak. The wording of the question is interesting to him—he asks to sit  _ with _ Sonny, rather than sit across  _ from _ him, which would have implied that they aren’t going to exist around one another. But Rafael specifying he wants to sit with him indicates that there’s something to be discussed. Sonny knows exactly what it is, and he isn’t sure how he wants to respond, let alone how he should. He can recognize he’s somewhat responsible for all of the tension between them, but he also refuses to let himself feel guilty for it. After all the shit humans put him through, why wouldn’t he be pissed?

Rafael takes a few bites of his food—what looks like chicken and rice, though Sonny is too occupied with the crab in front of him to focus on it—before he speaks again. He keeps his eyes level with his food, either to distract himself or to force him to do this. “Can I ask you something?”

Sonny finishes chewing and swallows the bite of crab meat he had taken. “Is it about ten years ago?”

Rafael scoffs at that, the corners of his lips quirking up for a brief second. “Is it that obvious?”

“In the sense that I know you wanna bring it up, sure.”

“Bring what up?” Rafael asks. “Our past? The week we spent together?” Sonny just shrugs in response, unable to come up with an answer. Rafael’s expression flickers to disapproval for a brief second before returning to neutral. “Do you blame me for wanting to talk about it?”

“I dunno. Do you blame me for wanting to avoid it?”

“If I knew why, I wouldn’t have to blame you for it.”

Sonny rolls his eyes. “Come on, Rafael. I know your brain is big enough to figure this out on your own.”

Rafael frowns, his arms crossed defiantly in front of him. As much as he may want to talk, his patience for unhelpful jibes like that is unappreciated. “I can’t read your mind. And I’m not going to assume what you want me to know.”

“Seriously?”

Rafael nods. “What, you don’t wanna say it? You’ve had a good time shoving it in my face every time I’ve tried to talk to you. Don’t you wanna finish the job?”

“I shouldn’t have to tell you what you are responsible for just by being a human!”

The pang of sadness that crossed Rafael’s face makes Sonny want to stop the conversation permanently and hole out in a room until he can return to the ocean. The relationship between humans and merfolk has evolved into something so different from its origins. If Sonny and his sister hadn’t been there to save Rafael, if their tribe hadn’t been hospitable to humans and sheltered him during his brief recovery, who knows what could have happened when Rafael fell in the water that day. But ten years is still ten years. Merfolk had to learn the hard way that there is no point in trusting humans when they can so easily ruin so many lives.

Neither of them says anything for a moment. Sonny sucks out some more meat from the crab legs and starts working on one of the full-bodied ones. If he keeps himself busy, maybe he can get away with not continuing the conversation. His honesty is not the best tactic at the moment. Rafael stays perfectly still, staring ahead, biting on his lip, seething in a silent bubble of his own creation, but is the one who speaks first.

“I wanted to ask if you regret meeting me all those years ago, but I think I have my answer,” Rafael states. Each syllable is forced out and pronounced in a layer of venom. “I should have taken the hint when you didn’t show up to see me off. And until you tell me otherwise, that’s what I have to believe. I’m not going to stay in limbo waiting for you to decide whether or not you’ll tell me. I still have a job to do, and until the week is over, we’ll have to work together.”

The irony of the situation is not lost on Sonny; this is, if not the exact wording, the same situation he and Rafael had found themselves in ten years ago. Once the week passes, Sonny will become a merman again, just like Rafael when he spent seven days in the ocean and eventually turned human. The outcome won’t change no matter how hostile they’ll treat each other—or, in this instance, how hostile Sonny will treat Rafael. It might be easier to be rude and not put that much thought into his time here, but it also might make him feel better to be nicer and at least try to cooperate.

Rafael wipes his face on a napkin before he gathers his things and stands. Sonny starts to reach out but drops his hand when Rafael keeps his gaze on his food and moves to the table with the rest of his coworkers. He doesn’t look back at the merman for the rest of their meal, and he doesn’t interact with him for the rest of the day. He gets used to walking thanks to Nick and Mike, the two men who had been sitting outside his room earlier. Rafael’s absence as he leaves with Rita and his blatant avoidance of Sonny speaks volumes.

And Sonny can only blame himself.

* * *

That night, Sonny is startled awake by a firm pair of hands shaking him back and forth. He barely registers two voices through his bleary state, one distant but in the room and the other hovering above him. He just manages to open his eyes when the second voice emerges through his foggy mind.

“Wake up, fish boy,” the voice seethes, replicating the woman he had met earlier in the day, “we’ve been found out. We have to leave.” Sonny makes a questioning hum that quickly turns into a yelp when the woman grabs him by the shoulders and yanks him into a sitting position. “I don’t have time to explain. Get up and move.”

“Sonny,” comes Rafael’s voice, and he steps into view, brows drawn together and his voice low, “if there is any time for you to trust me, it’s now. We can’t stay here. If we do, we can’t guarantee your safety.”

Sonny doesn’t move out of fear; he remembers the first person he had talked to here, Olivia, had implied their work was bordering on the illegal side. If anyone unauthorized to handle merfolk in any way was caught doing so, they were persecuted and punished severely. That’s the only thing Sonny can think of that would explain the hurry they are currently in.

His hands are shaking, and his legs are unreliable, but Sonny manages to stand up with help from the woman—Rita, if he remembers correctly—and walk out the room. Rafael follows close behind, a bag slung over his shoulder as they move quickly across the living space. All of the lights are off and no other sounds are coming from their floor. The others, Mike and Nick, must have gotten out already.

“Elevator,” Rita states once the bedroom door is shut.

“Stairs,” Rafael shoots back, already heading in the direction of the same stairwell Sonny had tried to escape down earlier in the day. “No waiting. It’s quicker.”

Rita rolls her eyes; Sonny does his best to hurry with her, one arm thrown over her shoulder, and he manages to keep up until they reach the stairs. Rita suddenly stops, and Sonny thinks she’s about to pick him up when Rafael bends down and grabs his ankles. Sonny gasps when his feet leave the floor and he’s moved downstairs, Rita’s arms under his armpits and Rafael holding his ankles.

“Hope you don’t mind,” Rafael says offhandedly, focusing on walking backward down the stairs. “We’re in a bit of a hurry.”

“A warning would have been nice,” Sonny frowns. He doesn’t get put back on the ground until they reach the ground floor. Rafael drops his legs more than he releases them, but Rita is dragging him and tugging on his arm too hard for Sonny to focus on the details. Through the glass pane of the side door, he spots a car waiting for them outside.

Rita situates his arm better over her shoulder while Rafael readjusts the bag crossing over his chest and leans into the door. “Ready?”

Rita nods; Sonny doesn’t answer, torn between not knowing if he is and wondering what he has to be ready for.

Rafael throws his arm against the door and pushes it open. He and Rita practically sprint across the pavement, Sonny hopping alongside them, and stumble into the vehicle. At first, Sonny didn’t catch its size or its purpose, but once he ducks his head and Rita tugs him in, he realizes the car is not a normal car. The front cabin to his right is what a car should be, according to his research—a steering wheel, two seats, a driver, belts to hold the passengers in place. But the rest of the car—van?—is not.

“Drive!” Rita snaps as she pulls the door shut. The person in the driver’s seat—Mike, by process of elimination—veers out of the parking lot in a hurry, the engine revving as they leave the building behind. Sonny stumbles into taking a seat on the brown loveseat against the far wall and examines his surroundings. Olivia is in the passenger seat beside Mike; Nick is behind them but sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the wall separating them. The rest of the area is longer than what he thought a car looked like and replicates more of a room, with two large beds in the far corner and a seating arrangement that would be used for meals. The loveseat Sonny sits on is mirrored by a chair on the opposite wall, where Rita sits to catch her breath. Rafael stands behind Nick to talk to Olivia. As close as they are, Sonny only catches some of their conversation before Rafael walks over and takes the seat beside Sonny.

Sonny feels more alert, his body thrumming with energy and his eyes keeping watch around the cabin, but his fears of the unknown are suffocating him. He didn’t know where they were before—at least near an ocean, and some sort of harbor, nothing specific or named—but if they’re going to be driving, he’s for sure not going to have any sense of direction on land. A thousand questions run through his head—what this means for him, how they ended up here, why move now and not earlier. He settles on the easiest one for now; “What’s going on?”

For a moment, a beat of silence fills the room. To Sonny’s surprise, Rafael is the one who clears his throat and provides an answer. “Our organization isn’t legal, since we actively search out stranded merfolk and take care of them,” he says. “We’re forced to be mobile since we don’t have any legal standing. Yet,” he adds, sounding more like an afterthought and less of a pondering realization. “Our best theory is that you washing up on shore got more attention than we thought, but with no mermaid to record, they seek out groups like ours to make sure no one’s broken the law.”

“How’s that work?”

“We publish research on supernatural entities for a university. But we use our field research to go out to different locations and help merfolk to live a life they could have lived before.”

There’s something sincere about the way Rafael explains it, maybe because he’s been doing it for a long time or he’s truly passionate about it. But Sonny knows he is the reason why Rafael is doing this job. Ten years ago, he asked questions and listened to every answer. When his hostility wore off and he finally allowed Sonny to show him how to swim, it almost felt like the cons of the situation had vanished. He didn’t have legs, but he learned how to swim. The way he arrived at an underwater city was not ideal, but he educated himself on their way of life and traditions.

He doesn’t have fins, but he can learn how to walk. The ocean is farther away than he might have liked, but he can educate himself on how he landed in these humans’ care in the first place. 

Sonny is ashamed of his behavior from the past two days. It shouldn’t have had to take two days to come to terms with that, especially when he knew there was little Rafael had done that would warrant a response like that. Humans could be the problem in a general sense—they had demonized and slandered merfolk for years, and that wasn’t going to vanish suddenly overnight—but some were trying to even out the amount of bad done with their own actions that could spread joy and start some sort of recovery.

Rafael is one of them. For whatever reason, he’s helped probably dozens upon dozens of merfolk. Sonny could have been another number to that assumption, another soul saved for now because of a few who were willing to work on reversing species oppression. He’s thankful he wasn’t.

* * *

“I never answered your question.”

Rafael looks up from scribbling in the notepad he’s hunched over. “What question?”

“If I regretted meeting you ten years ago or not.”

Sonny waits a day, a break in a place called Albany, before he properly addresses Rafael about their talk at lunch yesterday. Their first day on the road had focused primarily on educating Sonny on where they were: they had been in Boston, a city he knew of but hadn’t realized he was so close to, and they were trying to drive back down to Montauk. They had stayed in a local university while they were researching according to any higher-ups—and were focusing on helping out rogue merfolk according to those who were just as passionate as them about changing the official relationship between the two species. Some government officials had their suspicions but so far, they’ve been able to keep the more prohibited duties under the radar.

For each stop that’s made with their RV—a vehicle Sonny hadn’t known existed but is highly curious about the functionality of a van being able to hold enough space to include any of their needs—the team switches drivers. The person playing navigator gets behind the wheel and they rotate so that the previous driver can get enough rest. Sonny stays on the loveseat despite reassurances that he can take one of the beds, but he doesn’t mind curling up and staying put. He uses a cane Rita offers him when they take a break to stretch outside the RV or to help him get to the small square table for dinner. In the meantime, he silently observes the dynamics of the group of researchers he should be thankful for, at least for risking their lives and safety for his.

Olivia is the clear leader of the bunch; any orders she gives are matched with hasty actions, and her tone makes for a light yet steadfast leadership style. Mike and Rita are the chattier of the five and make small talk when they’re in the back. From what he’s gathered, Rita helps with their legal protections as their lawyer but also keeps track of the different laws that restrict merfolk, a task she also shares with Rafael though not as hands-on. Mike seems to be the strength of their operation, mostly from the cut of his muscles and shape of his body and less from anything he’s done. Nick is the liaison who handles any social interactions and meetings, and rightfully so—the man is charming in every sense of the word. Rafael is, as the man himself had described it, a record keeper and keeps track of their locations, duties, and objectives. He seems unfazed by Olivia’s orders, although the information he shields may play a part in it. Without him, there might not be any guide for them to follow or any efficient tracking method to keep them from getting lost.

Despite only being with them a few days, one of those in close quarters, Sonny has discovered a newfound appreciation for the researchers. They look out for one another and find laughs in dark corners of the roads they travel, sharing meals and memories and the odd encounters of random strangers. It’s a sort of comradery that Sonny would want to have from a group of friends.

But most importantly, he finds himself reaching out quietly to Rafael. A few verbal offerings that are met with a small smile that lights up green eyes, an accidental brush of the shoulders met with an alarmed flinch and, once the assurance kicks in, a relieved sigh. But it was only on their second day of traveling, having made it to Albany and doing their business there, that Sonny decided to interact directly. It might have been easier to go over the Long Island Sound via ferry, but they weren’t going to risk having Sonny out of the RV and getting caught. He didn’t understand, but the five had assured him that merfolk disguised as humans do not pass as well as they may think.

Rafael blinks at his statement and gestures to the open seat across from him. Olivia and Mike were running errands for supplies in preparation for their trip later that night while Nick and Rita handled any official business they had to handle in Albany. It was up to Rafael and Sonny to watch over the RV.

Sonny takes a seat on the opposite side of the table. Walking still felt foreign to him, but he had all but mastered the art of standing. Nick and Mike had tried that morning to goad him into standing on one leg, but Olivia had put a quick end to it. Rafael has gone back to whatever he was writing, but Sonny notices his posture is different. His shoulders are scrunched up just the slightest inch, and he’s leaning forward more, almost like he’s listening for something. The only way to find out is by speaking. “I don’t regret meeting you. And I’m sorry that I gave you the impression that I did.”

Rafael sets his pen down and grabs the drinking glass in front of him. “I never thought it could be a ruse,” he says before taking a sip. “At least in terms of what I genuinely believe.”

Sonny shrugs. “That’s fair. I didn’t give you a chance to believe anything else, huh?”

“You didn’t give me a chance, period.” Rafael sets the glass down and crosses his arms. “We didn’t spend a lot of time together, but gods, Sonny, we spent more than we should have. I feel inclined to ask why, but,” he scoffs, “I’d rather not upset you.”

Sonny takes a moment to mull over his response. His animosity towards humans hadn’t been vocalized before, at least not like this. Even with his sisters, before they had been separated, it was a mutual understanding. “Humans took everything from me. My city, my parents, my sisters. I don’t know where anyone from my family is. My parents made sure we weren’t assimilated, but we were forced apart. It’s not an excuse,” Sonny adds, and he hopes Rafael can see how much he means it, “but how else am I supposed to feel? My home wasn’t close enough to the shore to interact with humans regularly, I barely went to shore with legs. The best interaction I had with humans was with…” He stops himself. A confession like that, when he’s just starting to admit his wrongs, is not the best time.

Rafael doesn’t answer immediately, twirling his pen between his fingers and watching it for a few cycles. “I can understand why you feel that way. Especially when you haven’t met the humans who are trying to do good. If I was in your place, or if I only knew merfolk at their worst, I’d lash out too.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t let me walk over you. There’s no excuse for the way I treated you. Even ten years ago, I knew your spite against me wasn’t personal.”

Rafael scoffs. “I don’t fear your walking. It’s not exactly perfect.” Sonny smiles at the teasing jab; that had to be a good sign. “But even back then, I may have had good reasons to be mad, but none were enough to justify taking my aggravation out on you.”

“Sounds similar, huh?”

“I’ve been thinking that. I would have brought it up directly, if I didn’t feel like it would get my ass handed to me.” Rafael pauses, drums his fingers on the table, and sits up straighter. “Do you wanna start over?”

Sonny tilts his head at that, not quite understanding the request. “Start over with what? The conversation?”

“Everything. I don’t know if the custom applies to merfolk, but when humans fight one another, they might do a reset of their relationship so that they can do right by one another. Like this.” He reaches a hand out across the table. “I’m Rafael Barba. I’m head researcher and lawyer for an activist group that helps rehabilitate merfolk and reestablish their ecosystems and ways of life.”

Sonny takes the hand, unsure of what it means but unwilling to ask and see for himself. He can trust Rafael. This is a good thing. “I’m Sonny. I’m a merman.” He trails off—was there any profession he was supposed to have? “I’m a professional wanderer.”

Rafael chuckles and gives their hands a firm shake. There’s a slight difference in the air between them that speaks of the mutual ground they’ve reached. It could be temporary, but Sonny hopes it’s nothing more than a learning experience for a new beginning to their relationship.

They spend the next hour or so getting to know each other—or, to some extent, familiarizing themselves with the other. Rafael tells him about the bullying he had endured from spoiled snobs at a birthday party for Rita and that chased him into accidentally tripping and falling into the Atlantic. Sonny tells him about the hunters he was positive were out to descale him and chased him up the east coast to a Boston beach that resulted in him passing out from exhaustion. Their similarities shine through the more they talk—their curiosity for the unknown and their understanding of that knowledge, the bright shine of Rafael’s eyes that replicates the eagerness in Sonny’s tone, the number of topics they preach about but never over each other, actually taking the time to pause and hear what the other is saying. It may not be a lot, but for Sonny, it means something to be heard for once.

For just a moment, they can have something good.

* * *

The drive from Albany to Montauk, with a planned stop to New York City, starts decent enough. Nick drives with navigation from Mike, Rita takes a nap in the back, and Olivia reviews paperwork detailing their trip to Boston. With the free time available to them, Rafael teaches Sonny how to play some card games. In the time it’s taken since they started to prepare to leave Albany behind, Sonny has gone from beginner’s struggles to a decent attempt at getting close to but not actually winning. He flushes a bit when Rafael says as much, smiling at him while he shuffles the cards.

“Is it surprising to you or something?” He asks, faking interest in a napkin to avoid his mild embarrassment from being called out.

“Only a little,” Rafael shrugs. “I didn’t take you for a card strategy person.”

“They’re similar to what we used to have. Except we used to make cards out of broken shells and coral shards.” Rafael gives them an even amount of cards to play another round of War and flips the top card of his deck to show a four. Sonny does the same and gets a seven, therefore winning both cards. Of the few games they’ve played, War was the one Sonny gravitated to the most. Success depended on chance and kept an air of uncertainty between them.

“How did that work? Was each type of shell ranked in a tier list?”

“Basically, yeah. The rarer the shell, the more power it had.” Sonny grins when he realizes of the five rounds they’ve played in this game of War, he’s won four. He puts his card down, a five; Rafael puts the same card down. They each turn a card down and then flip up a new card from their decks. Rafael’s ten defeats Sonny’s eight; the scowl on Rafael’s face quickly turns into a satisfied smile as he scoops up all six cards. “We had to cut them into the same shape, though, so it’s a little different from your version.”

“Just a little. Ours isn’t as labor-intensive.” Rafael clacks his deck of cards against the table to straighten them out. “What did you call it?”

“War, same as you. I wanna say it was taken from your version, but I dunno. I never looked into it.”

“And why would you?” The corners of Rafael’s mouth quirk up in a teasing smirk. “The naming of certain things is  _ so _ interesting.”

Sonny laughs at the sarcasm, and they continue playing until they reach New York City. Their decks are nearly even, and Sonny still wants to play after they complete whatever errands they have, so they set the cards aside for now. Rafael nods to the RV door. “You haven’t been to New York City, right?”

Sonny shakes his head. “Not this far inland. Plus, the water irritates my skin.”

Rafael gives a small smile. Sonny’s noticed just how little he smiles around the rest of his team and how many times he’s let it slip, either on purpose or accident, with Sonny. “It’s quite a sight if you’ll let me show you around.”

“Don’t stray far from the RV,” Olivia advises them as she steps off. “We won’t be here long.”

“We’ll be up the block,” Rafael assures her, hopping off the top step and landing on the sidewalk. He looks up at Sonny, still inside the RV, tentative and cautious. He had barely taken a step in Albany, let alone Boston, and his senses were quickly becoming sensitive to the amount of sounds and smells coming his way. “Would you like to join me on a walk?”

Sonny looks at Rafael’s hand, reaching out a hand in silent invitation and expectation. Being as startled as he is at the city surroundings, he has a feeling that Rafael will only do as much as Sonny lets him. Once again, the time they spent together does not define how they treat or view one another. Sonny wonders to himself if there’s a special name for that. He pockets the thought for later, takes Rafael’s hand, and steps out of the RV.

Rafael shows him the buildings from afar—the Empire State, the Chrysler, the One World Trade Center, which was met with a wistful gaze and a soft huff—and cites them as the more iconic sights. Sonny understands why they’re called skyscrapers when they may as well be surpassing the clouds above. They stroll down the street and Rafael points at tiny shops, giving them each a name: pizzeria, deli, bakery, bodega. Sonny repeats it all, earning a genuine laugh from Rafael.

“You blend in perfectly,” he says.

Sonny can’t help but tilt his head and blink at him. “Isn’t that the point?”

“Yes, but you fit in here, in the city. It’s your accent.”

“I don’t hear an accent.”

Rafael scoffs. “That’s a surprise. You sound more like a New Yorker than I do, and I grew up here.”

He takes him to grab a drink—Rafael mentions the mermaid logo and laughs when Sonny scowls at the taste of coffee—and a pastry—Rafael calls them cannoli and zeppole, and Sonny practically devours both of them. He shows Sonny around the few blocks they’re confined to, and each one has Sonny craning his head up to see just how high the buildings go. The sky must look pretty at night.

“What do the lights in the sky look like?” Sonny asks.

“The lights in the city or the stars?” Rafael counters.

“The stars. What do they look like?”

Rafael’s smile is sad. “We don’t see the stars at night. There are too many lights on in the city and it causes light pollution, which stops us from seeing some stars, if at all.” He looks up at the sky with a sigh. “There are some places farther north from Albany that might get to see them. We don’t get that privilege.”

Sonny frowns at that. It was always a joy to lay on his back at night and float along the ocean’s surface counting the stars he passed under. It was so small, but it always brought him joy. To think humans could lose the opportunity of seeing the stars at night is devastating. “I guess we’ll have to arrange for something.”

Rafael turns to look at him; Sonny keeps his eyes forward, unwilling to view his reaction just yet. There used to be legends of each star being a merperson’s soul looking down at the world and giving a greeting to descendants or relatives. Did they not have as much significance with humans? “I guess we will. You’ll have to show me the view from your home sometime.”

“I’d love that!” Sonny gulps when he realizes he had shouted and reels back his tone. “Uhm, yeah, you would love it out there. If you’re into the stars, I mean.”

“I am.”

Sonny looks at him then, and he swears there are full swarms of stars in Rafael’s eyes when he looks at him. The green of his irises are so vivid, pulsing with intensity at each glint of light that flickers over them, it almost makes him dizzy. Sonny remembers another time when he got lost in Rafael: swimming below him, their bodies parallel as they raced above the coral shelves and simply enjoyed being around one another. Sonny was captivated with him then, and he’s captivated now, trapped within shining green. Only this time, he isn’t going to leave.

Rafael stops them on the sidewalk—they’ve returned to the same strip of road as the RV, he thinks, but he’s too enchanted to think about it. Sonny’s heart bangs inside his chest when Rafael takes both of his hands in his and squeezes. “You know,” he whispers, soft enough to be hidden by loud vehicles but loud enough for Sonny to soak in every syllable, “when we first met, when we were eighteen, I had a bit of a crush on you.” The corners of his lips twitch. “Turns out I’ve always had one. I dated men with dirty blond hair, and if they didn’t have that, their eyes would be bluer than the sky. And if they didn’t have that, I looked for one who wanted to learn with me but wasn’t going to trample on my wants. Or the one who could handle my bad attitude without questioning why I’m upset or gave me enough space when I wanted to be alone that made me rely on him in the event I did need company and was too stubborn to admit it.”

“Did you ever find him?”

Rafael nods. “But not where I was looking. In fact,” he steps closer, his face glowing with a pretty flush, nibbling on his lower lip in a show of nerves and vulnerability, “I ended up running away from it. Or, I guess,” he smiles, and internally, Sonny melts, “I swam away.”

Sonny swallows roughly and adjusts his grip around Rafael’s hands. He never got the chance to be with a partner, at least not seriously or before his hometown was raided, but he can already identify the swell of emotions brewing in his chest and expanding to the rest of his body. Even if the human species irked him to no end, there was no way he could ever muster enough genuine hate to taint his image of Rafael. “You had other things to do. You shouldn’t fault yourself for leaving.”

“It’s not the leaving. It’s the never coming back, or even trying to, because I knew I would have to address certain things. Mainly,” he hesitates, just the slightest bit, “that I had certain feelings for you.”

“Do you still feel that way?”

Rafael nods. When he smiles, Sonny feels his heart flutter into a roaring inferno.

“Despite the way I treated you?”

“Do you remember how I treated you? I didn’t tell you my name when we first met.” Rafael squeezes his hands when Sonny ducks his head and hums in agreement. “You were different from anything I had ever heard about merfolk, you know. And for once, I had someone who wanted to listen to what I had to say without interrupting or talking over me.”

“I mean,” Sonny steals a glance at Rafael, and he can’t help but smile at the warm expression sent his way, all tender green and gentle admiration, “your mind is brilliant. Ignoring it would be an insult.”

“Really?” Rafael’s gaze flickers to his lips. The English word for the gesture to match his wandering eyes should be “kiss,” Sonny muses. The Spanish was “beso” unless it was talking about the act of kissing, which would make it “besar.” Sonny remembers the lessons Rafael gave him in Spanish, speaking fast and precise and helping Sonny learn some fun words in the language.

Before anything else can be said, Rafael jolts and digs into his pants pocket to pull out his cell phone. He groans at the name on the screen and answers it in an equal bout of discontentment. Sonny looks to the left, over a stretch of water and a banister separating the road from the river, to a figure—a statue, he realizes, standing in the middle of the water. It looks like a person with a crown, one arm holding what appears to be slabs of something, perhaps books, and the other stretched above her head holding something. He can’t make it out except a guess that it’s smaller than the things she’s holding in her other hand, but he’s intrigued by the figure nonetheless.

Sonny wracks his brain to think of her name but his memory fails to produce the name. It’s been a long time since he’s thought of it, and his last visit to the city wasn’t this far inward. The river water irritated his skin too much to venture this far in. But from what he’s seen, the statue is the only one of its kind in the city, and there are no replicas in the water around it. It’s a unique sight, even from a distance.

Sonny starts to ask Rafael about it but he stops himself. There’s a crease between his furrowed brows, and his hand grabs Sonny’s arm in a tight grip. “We have to go,” he states.

“Back to the RV?” Sonny asks.

“To Montauk. They’re onto us. I’ll explain once we get back to the others.”

Sonny and Rafael retreat up the street to the RV, and the statue in the water stands on.

* * *

By the time they pull up to Montauk, it’s gotten dark. Rita had been driving for most of their trip across the place called Long Island and drove them through small towns and rolling suburbs to lose anyone who may be following them. At one point, Olivia scolded her for being reckless, but Rita snapped back that being reckless was their best option. The overseer of the university had allegedly tipped off authorities into their whereabouts that were then linked to suspicious activities surrounding merfolk. Sonny didn’t understand how, and it sounded like the others didn’t either, but being discovered with a merman among their ranks was a risk.

“The second you touch the ocean water,” Rafael explains, “your body will return to its original form. If they catch us, they’ll test all of us with samples, and when they find out that you aren’t human, they’ll make sure to separate you from us.”

“What’s after that,” Sonny frowns, “assimilation? Like my parents?”

Rafael doesn’t answer. And yet it speaks as loudly as his words would.

The second they arrive at Montauk, Rafael hauls Sonny to his feet and tosses his arm over his shoulder. Sonny’s legs are trembling, and it’s not from the jostle of the RV. Rita pulls up to a beach and stops right at the edge of the sidewalk; Mike throws the door open; Rafael, with Sonny in tow, dashes out of the RV and begins a fast walk down the beach. Sonny had taken off his shoes beforehand and the sand tickles the soles of his feet. It’s foreign, feeling sand between toes, but somehow familiar. He knows he’s home—and it’s not just because of the ocean. His home, the city he grew up in, is only a few miles out from where they are now.

“We’ll get to the house on the water,” Rafael states in a firm whisper, “and get you back in the ocean.” The early evening light is sparse but still finds his eyes and brings out a determined glint through them. Sonny nearly trips over himself for staring too long.

“And then what?” Sonny asks.

Rafael hesitates. “I don’t want to say anything definitive, but I can’t stay with you. I know that much.”

The words rip through Sonny; after being separated for so long, they’re going to repeat the events of ten years ago—and then what? Is this a permanent goodbye? Sonny ducks under his arm and stumbles back, eyes glued to Rafael’s shocked expression. “I’m sorry,” he says, unable to stop the bitterness from shining through, “but I’m not doing this again.” Rafael opens his mouth to respond but Sonny cuts him off. “Ten years ago, when my sister and I took care of you and you left after a week, I didn’t see you off because I didn’t want you to leave. And if I didn’t see it happen, maybe I could pretend none of it happened, because it didn’t end the way I wanted it to.”

Rafael opens his mouth, closes it, and takes a deep breath. “Which is?”

Looking at Rafael in whatever sunlight hasn’t retreated already, watching the expectation bend into impatience, brings him back to the time he taught Rafael how to swim with a tail. Sonny wonders if he still remembers how it works. They don’t have to live separately to be happy. And that’s when it hits him: through his withdrawal from human society and his sparse tone with Rafael, a single consistent thought jumps out at him. The words have been unsaid, brewing on his tongue and dwelling in his head, for ten years. If he keeps it in any longer, he might burst. Sonny hopes his sincerity is seen if not heard, and he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding and a truth he has kept unsaid from even himself. “I wanted to be with you. Not as a human, not as a merman. I just wanted you.”

Neither of them says anything. Rafael eyes him with an unreadable stare; Sonny tries to decipher it but he doesn’t know what he wants to see. Mutual feelings? Maybe a bit of confusion but confidence in the belief that they share the same emotions? The wait isn’t long before the silence is broken, but it feels like years before Rafael steps forward and connects their lips in a kiss. Sonny jumps at the contact but ends up melting into it when he discovers just how tender Rafael’s lips are. His hands move of their own accord to hold the human’s face tenderly, thumbs brushing over his cheeks. It’s such a simple movement, to kiss him, but Sonny is infatuated with it. The way Rafael moves under him, holding the back of his neck as he tilts his head and takes in more; the touch and feel of him, pouring the emotions he did not portray into the gesture. At first, it’s overwhelming to feel what was just hidden away, but Sonny is happy to adjust to it and respond to it with just as much emotion. Any other reaction would be a lie for both of them. And even if he tried, he wouldn’t last by keeping Rafael distant.

Sonny moves back first, his lungs aching for air, and Rafael presses their foreheads together. The searing heat radiating off of Rafael is a welcomed surprise that Sonny didn’t realize he missed so much. Merfolk were notorious for not being as warm-blooded; Sonny is thankful he has the chance to feel so much heat from Rafael’s touch.

“Who would’ve thought,” Rafael whispers, “a human and a merman meet once and catch feelings for one another. But they don’t get to do anything about it until ten years have passed.”

“I don’t wanna wait another ten years,” Sonny frowns. He scoots closer to Rafael so that he can duck his head and burrow into the crook of his neck. “I don’t know what we have to do, but I want to do this again.”

“What, running from the authorities?” Rafael chuckles, even more so when Sonny huffs against his skin. “We’ll think of something. As soon as it’s safe.”

Sonny straightens up again, holding Rafael’s arms for balance, so he can look at him properly. “How long is that going to take?”

Instead of answering, Rafael looks away and takes his hand so they can start walking. The lack of response sends a wave of concern rippling through Sonny. Stopping for a brief moment and sharing a heated kiss might not have been the wisest choice in their situation, but Sonny would do it all over again if it meant he could kiss Rafael.

The two-story house is a wide building that sits above the water on stilts. The main access to it is from the beach, and Sonny and Rafael hurry along the shore to the dock lining the building. There’s a good distance between the water and the dock itself, so going in might be a permanent thing for now. When they reach the end of the boardwalk, Sonny begins to strip his clothes off. There’s not much light where they are, but there’s enough from the moon and sources farther away past the beach to make up the difference.

“We’re standing by the same spot I fell in,” Rafael points out. He stands a few feet back from the edge, eyeing the dock in what looks like contempt. His eyes flash with momentary reflection. “To think it would have brought me to you…” He breaks out of whatever daze he had been trapped in and looks at Sonny, this time the adoration clear as day. “I would risk my fear of the water to do it all over again.”

Sonny’s heart simultaneously sinks and soars at the sentiment, and he makes one last stop of his own to kiss Rafael. He’s warm and solid and real, the type of thing he could dream before he met a human like this. The English word for this sensation—of dedication, of loyalty, of admiration and unbridled joy—floats to the forefront of his mind. Love. He has next to no time left in a human form and the only thing Sonny can think is how much he loves Rafael.

He can feel Rafael smile against him, his hands ghosting up to hold his shoulders and curl over the muscles. He can hear the muted chuckle that resonates with just how giddy he is in this moment. But he also experiences Rafael pulling back in reluctance, his eyes shining and his smile sad. “You have to return to the ocean, Sonny. We don’t know how close the authorities are.”

“I know,” he sighs. “I just wanted one last moment with you.” Sonny gives one last squeeze to his hands before his fingers trail off his palm and he turns to face the ocean. In one fell swoop, the smell of the ocean and the familiarity hit him square in the chest. He’s returned to this area over the years, but he never dwelled in it for long. The memories of losing his family, his city, were too strong to bring him back to the streets. Perhaps, for this one instance, it can be different.

Without looking behind him, Sonny takes a few steps back and gets a running start for his dive back into the ocean. Almost instantly, as soon as he submerges himself in the water, the legs he had worn for the past few days begin to solidify back to a tail. Sonny’s lungs were unfazed by the change in atmospheres, but the irritation of the Resin washing off of him is unsettling to his body past his waist. He gasps as the lower half of his body fuses together once again; his skin peels and sheds to make room for his scales and help form the meat of his tail. The concept of Temporary Resin was generally understood, but the process itself and what happened during a transformation were left out of the discussion. Growing legs or a tail and then reverting back to one was not as pleasant, especially when a tail had to be formed. Sonny watches his scales solidify and harden over his tail’s muscles until he feels one solid form below his waist once again. Even in the lack of light, his scales glisten in a welcome of golden yellow and warm orange, happy to return to normal.

Sonny flips a few times in celebration and grins at the swarm of bubbles around him. His physical health feels much better than it did before he washed up onto a Boston shore. There’s no damage to his scales that he can see, and he flicks his tailfin to test its strength—good, still in one, still as fluttery as ever. He can’t help but rejoice at his return to the sea, and he says as much by diving up and arching down so that his entire form is on display. The muted sounds of Rafael’s amusement float from above, and Sonny pushes himself up so he can break the surface and look at the human properly.

It shouldn’t make him so sad to see just how different they are, but Rafael kneeling on the deck in a contrast to Sonny treading water is a blaring observation. Sonny’s heart trips over itself at the thought of losing Rafael, of the realization that their differences are too vast to consider anything real happening between them. Rafael could want to kiss someone with legs, maybe wish that Sonny finds someone with fins so that they aren’t pining after the impossible.

The words fly off his tongue before he even realizes he’s using them.

“I’m sorry we aren’t the same.”

Rafael frowns and reaches a hand down. Sonny grabs it like a lifeline. “Why do you say that?”

“Because we can’t be together like we want. Or like I want. I don’t,” Sonny huffs at how frantic he sounds, his thoughts rushing together and making him trip over his words. It could be another tick against him to prevent him and Rafael from enjoying each other’s company. “I want to kiss you. And hold you. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Wait for me.” Rafael’s grip becomes desperate as his other hand flies forward to hold his hand between his. “I know it’s a lot to ask of you, but I’m not going to avoid you again. I’m coming back to you.”

Sonny tries to steal one more kiss, just one more, but falls short of making the distance and sinks back down. At least it made Rafael smile, as much as the sadness was pulling at the edges. “I’d look for you otherwise. Even if I have to walk to you, I want to be with you.”

Rafael stretches out so he can press a kiss to his forehead. Sonny’s tail stutters underneath him—the kiss had been warmth and soft, such a nice comparison to the brash and hard exterior Rafael supports, harder than the scales on Sonny’s tail—but he stays afloat. “And even if I have to swim to you, I’ll come back to you.”

This time, Sonny watches Rafael leave until he disappears over the curve of the dunes. The sight is as painful as he could have imagined, the very thing he avoided ten years ago. His chest feels open and exposed, raw to the salty waters around him. But the promise stays on his mind.

They learned the hard way the pain that came from being separated. No matter their species, they’re going to return to one another. They’ve already done it once. They can do it again.

* * *

It doesn’t take as long as Sonny had thought to reunite with Rafael.

He spent maybe two days in mild mourning, swimming between the coastline and the flat plain of the ocean floor, stopping to eat or to let his tail rest after a few days of being stagnant. But once it finishes, Sonny propels himself to his hometown for the first time in years. The streets aren’t as bare as he thought, mostly because of the new and old faces that inch out to greet him, including his older sister Teresa. All these years, his city has lived on in secret, thriving enough for the residents to survive but decaying enough to hide it from predators.

Sonny starts to work on rebuilding it almost immediately. He and Teresa catch up between discussions with the residents and renovation plans: after they had been separated, Teresa returned to the city to try and salvage as much of their home as she could, helping the refugees in the city survive and attempting the preservation of their culture; she met up with Gina when she returned from “traveling,” as she had dubbed it, experiencing both life with legs and living in other bodies of water; she didn’t have any word on their parents directly, but she had been able to pick up on pieces, and it sounded like they were in the District of Columbia, far enough away from the water to not tempt them but close enough to return if health concerns were ever made. They were alive and doing as okay as they could, and that was enough for Sonny. In the meantime, Teresa had become a council member thanks to her efforts preserving what little she could of the land. She was dedicated to helping their hometown be rebuilt, and Sonny didn’t hesitate to join her.

Teresa found updates on the youngest Carisi, Bella, through Gina: Bella had rejected her tail about two years after they had been separated so she could live with a human she had fallen in love with. According to Gina, she had even made a pendant for the human, a tradition meant to show a partner’s interest and dedication to a long relationship. Teresa may have been more bitter about the whole thing, but Sonny thinks Bella’s regular visits—with the human, and with a tinier addition—balance everything out. Sonny keeps his experiences to a minimum: he traveled for survival, but never on land by choice. He reunited with the human they had rescued ten years ago. The way Teresa’s eyes lit up was almost enough to convince him to tell her everything, but he decided against it. Maybe another time.

The physical damage to the city is greater than the spirit of the merfolk residing in its shadow. Where tall spires once stretched out, only severed stumps remain. The coral and plant life have overgrown between passages and the decorated tiles that used to stretch through the city. Homes were left without proper doors or windows, some even lacking roofs, and their residents had to make do with using other objects for privacy. When Sonny arrived, they had finished rebuilding the market quarter, as well as two medical huts, and were working on improving housing. Its concerns were mostly directed at renovations and improvements to the original forms since the structures themselves had stayed relatively in one piece.

Either way, Sonny helps the residents, reconnecting with old faces and making strides with new ones. For six months, he had been tasked with keeping the residents of homes that were being worked on housed and safe. He starts the day feeding them and helping any families with young kids; at night, he delivers supplies across the city and offers help in whatever way he can.

Sonny had made a deal with Teresa that he would stay by the surface in case their sisters come by if she can stay with the relocated merfolk at night. He crosses the buoy line and hides well in the looming shadow of the house on stilts. It doesn’t seem to be in use anymore, at least to his knowledge, but after testing it with a rock and his sister, he knows he’ll be able to detect anyone walking on the planks above him.

It takes six months before there’s any sort of human activity up there. The day has barely begun, the sun is just starting to glisten through the water in thin rays, and Sonny stretches from the curled position he’s become accustomed to falling asleep in. It helps limit anyone from sighting him by staying as small as possible and from stopping his tail from catching any light, accident or otherwise.

“—could use it. My parents haven’t been inside for—”

“—looking into, at least—”

Sonny jumps up as soon as the voice hits his ears. The water and the distance from the ocean floor to the boardwalk muffle it, but he’s sure he recognizes the second voice. It has to be Rafael. He straightens up and slowly starts to rise so he can hear better.

“It has enough space, it’s out of the way, and it’s privately owned. If you can get full ownership from your parents—”

The tone, the lilt, the pattern. There’s no mistaking it.

Sonny shoots up to the surface, making sure to keep down in case the person he’s with isn’t trustworthy. The first voice that he had heard belonged to a woman, and it sounded familiar, even without the context clues in the conversation, but it was never a bad choice to stay safe.

“Rafael,” the woman sighs, and Sonny nearly yells at the confirmation, “how certain are we that this can work? I know Olivia said she has the science to back it up, but I can’t be the only one who’s skeptical.”

“It has a possibility of succeeding,” Rafael says; Sonny melts at his voice, sinking back into the water but keeping his head above the surface, “not a certainty. Either way, I think the advancements that can come from it are more beneficial than the setbacks.”

“Are you sure it’s not because you fancy a merman?”

Sonny dives back under the water and makes a loud flap against the surface with his tail so that he can be heard. He swims out a bit from the end of the dock so that he can be seen. When he pops up, he is facing—what’s her name—Rita’s back but is within Rafael’s sight. Rafael doesn’t immediately see him, looking down at what he must have heard below them with a curious glance. But when he finally looks up, and his eyes fall on Sonny, green tones twinkling in the morning sun, Rafael gasps, stumbles backward on the dock, and promptly falls into the water.

Alarm shoots through Sonny and he quickly propels himself to the other side of the dock, where Rafael is—thankfully and unlike last time—sputtering and soaking but staying afloat. Rita rushes to the edge of the dock and kneels to observe them. Sonny wraps his arms around Rafael to help him remain above water. He waits until he’s done coughing, eyes screwed shut as his palms knead at them, before speaking.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you!” Panic rushes through him at the thought of offending him and possibly ruining any chance of them pursuing a relationship. Sonny settles the feelings with a reminder of their last words to one another and a verbal quip paired with a sheepish smile: “We need to stop making a habit of this.”

Rafael, pushing his hair off his forehead and opening his eyes, simply laughs. He wraps his arms around Sonny’s shoulders and he presses their foreheads together. The kiss they delve into is six months overdue but as sweet and tender as the last time they had seen each other. Sonny pushes back earnestly and holds back from twirling them around. Finally, at last, whatever they may be, he and Rafael have a chance at finding happiness.

* * *

Olivia’s plan is simple in hindsight: develop a method to allow merfolk and humans to exist within the other’s environment without a serum or a Temporary Resin. The execution of the idea is unclear: Rafael has suggested a token of some sort, a bracelet or belt to help form or remove a tail; Nick followed that up with any type of headwear, like a headband; Mike suggested an edible, something that could be consumed. Each one had merit but none of them could agree on it. Rita had been the one to propose a location that would allow them to develop the idea better, even if she was initially cautious about the risks involved. And there was one location—an old summer home, unused after years of disinterest and inabilities to make time for it—that could work for them.

Rafael updates Sonny while sitting on the dock after Rita helped pull him out of the water. As reluctant as he and Sonny had been to separate, according to both humans, soaking wet clothes weren’t ideal attire. Sonny doesn’t understand it much, since Rafael looks amazing even with his clothes plastered to his skin, but he takes their word for it and respects his wishes.

“So this building is gonna be used for research?” Sonny asks.

“More or else,” Rafael says, removing his shoes and dumping out the water held inside. “Rita volunteered her family home so we could conduct it here.”

“We?”

“Us, Olivia, who you met once before—”

“And Nick and Mike, the two himbos with worthwhile brawn but who forget to use their brains,” Rita scoffs.

“I talked with them some,” Sonny adds. He looks up at Rafael to garner his reaction to his next question. “So if you’re using this place for research, are you gonna live here too?”

Rafael looks away quickly with a flushed face; Sonny’s heart flutters at how precious the sight is. Rita answers; “There’s enough room for all of us. Plus, it’s much safer if we stay here where our work is. We can protect it and our lives if either is threatened.”

Rafael huffs and smacks Rita on the arm. “Don’t,” he warns, but Sonny is already inching closer. There was very little reason for why she would suggest something like that.

“Did something happen? Is everyone alright?”

“We’re fine now,” Rita gives a dramatic sigh; Rafael grumbles something in Spanish—Spanish!—under his breath. “Your boyfriend over here decided it would be a good idea to get in a few fights with other departments at our work.”

“Nothing happened,” Rafael tried to add, but Rita talks faster and louder.

“You gave him your cell and apartment number! You were goading him into getting your ass kicked.”

Sonny moves so that he’s in Rafael’s line of sight. Rafael looks embarrassed, if anything, but a hint of shame tints his eyes. He knows Rafael is risking a lot by trying to mend the relationship between humans and merfolk, but he didn’t realize the extent of that risk. Even if it didn’t turn into anything, the thought is enough to scare him into reality. Their interactions alone could put them both in danger.

Sonny reaches out a hand for Rafael to take, and he presses his lips to the top when their fingers intertwine. “As long as you’re safe,” he says, “that’s all I need to hear.”

Rafael smiles at him. “I was. I am. And to be fair, I thought it was a good move at the moment.”

“But not anymore?”

He shakes his head. “I can’t do that now. Not when there are other lives to consider. Including my colleagues. And…” he trails off, that pretty pink flush adorning his face again, but for a different type of embarrassment. The sort that fills Sonny’s chest with a giddy sort of happiness. The type that earns them both an amused glance and a chuckle from a witness.

“Me?” Sonny teases, finishing the sentence with a prod of his knee.

Rafael rolls his eyes playfully. “If you want to be proud about it, yes, including you.”

Sonny flicks his tail up so that some water splashes towards them. Rafael scowls in mild offense; Rita practically shrieks at the attempt to water her clothes. 

At least he can see Rafael smile as the rising sun graces him with a dusting of gold and peppers his eyes with jade shards. Sonny is certain that the English word “love” cannot describe his feelings for the human any longer. What he feels is too powerful to put into words, no matter how descriptive they may be.

The next few weeks are hectic with Olivia and her team moving into the house and Sonny tending to his hometown. They gather more hands to help them rebuild and start to rekindle communication with other cities in their section of the ocean. Rafael always called it the Atlantic, and as nice as it was, Sonny preferred to call it home. He always has. He enjoys being a merman and swimming in open seas, just as happy sliding between coral shelves for some foraging as he is gliding through open waters. The merfolk get used to the new humans, firstly Rafael as the more familiar face and then the others one by one. The council makes it clear that Sonny’s trust does not speak for the rest of the city, as the rest of the merfolk are still wary of humans. Sonny had prepared the researchers with himself as an example: his initial reactions to being around them were still the reactions of merfolk as a whole when it came to humans.

“We have no plans to stomp on Emelda’s government or eradicate your way of life,” Olivia states during their meeting between the two sides. “If anything, we want to help, but we understand your hesitance.”

“If it makes you more comfortable, we can communicate with you through Sonny when and if we need to,” Rafael offers. The council had been shocked to hear just how close his and Sonny’s relationship had become. He’s sure it’s not worse because of the part he’s taken to help rebuild the city.

They strike a deal: while the merfolk work on fixing their city, the researchers can work on fixing the relationship between humans and merfolk. Neither side will approach one another without cause, and Sonny will remain a liaison for the two sides until relations have improved. Sonny also volunteers himself as a subject in the research so that they can be successful without having to build another merperson’s trust from the ground up. Olivia does her best to assure the council that it is on her team’s shoulders as humans to repair the damage to the relationship between the species. Sonny only hopes it lasts.

* * *

The first day of research Sonny is involved with has him laying in a shallow tub similar to the one that he had woken up in six months ago. He doesn’t mind it as much now with Rafael holding his hand or remaining by his side. Sonny shows them where to remove one of his scales, one that had chipped when he zoomed too fast over the coral shelves and would fall off when a new scale started growing in. When the tub is drained and then refilled after a few hours, Sonny notices a silver stick bobbing in one of the buckets used to fill the tub up again.

“What’s that for?” He points to the stock.

“A thermometer,” Nick replies. “Helps us measure how hot or cold the water is.” He empties the last bucket into the tub and eyes the end of Sonny’s tail, the feathery strands waving in the water. “There’s no way to get a piece of your tailfin, right?”

“It’s part of the tail itself,” Rafael states, his tone less informative and more akin to reminding someone of a forgotten fact. “The scales act like teeth, but the tail itself is a tongue.”

“A tongue with teeth,” Mike shudders from where he’s studying the scale. “I think I’ll pass on that.”

Nick shrugs and grabs a black box with switches and knobs around its top and a large circular extension in the center front. Sonny is entranced by it instantly, nearly missing the question thrown his way. “Do you mind if I take pictures of them?”

Sonny nods, dazed by the question, and watches Nick fiddle with the device. Rafael helps guide his tailfin comfortably onto the edge of the tub. Nick brings it close to his face, practically touching his cheek, and fiddles with a few buttons before pressing one. A clicking noise sounds off from the box, causing Sonny to jump. Nick scowls at whatever shows up on the box; Rafael chuckles softly and runs a hand through his hair.

“It’s only a camera,” he assures him. “It can take photos of anything you point it at.”

“Like this,” Nick says, only this time, when he presses the button, there’s one click. He turns it around, and Sonny is instantly fascinated. Somehow, the camera captured a visual of him in the tub, tailfin sticking out one end, and Rafael beside him, looking at him with pure adoration. They don’t blink or move—is it even possible to capture motion like that?—but they don’t have to. The photo has enough life to convince Sonny of the camera’s magic.

He asks for it, but apparently, technology like that doesn’t mesh well with water. Maybe he can try out the camera during a human test.

Nick takes a few more pictures, this time making sure to ask Sonny and describing the process as he goes. Any part of his body that is not human is of interest to them, including his teeth and hands. Although, Sonny points out rather innocently and to Rafael’s flustered expression, kissing his—what had they called it?—boyfriend was enough of a tell that their teeth were different. Either way, his tailfin, teeth, and scales are recorded with photographs for research.

Olivia stops by to make recordings of the internal parts of his body, including his heart and what she referred to as blood pressure. His lungs were especially interesting thanks to their ability to filter oxygen and water separately.

“Your lungs really don’t work like that?” Sonny asks, shivering once again as Olivia’s instrument ghosts over his back in a cold sweep. “I don’t get it.”

“Why would we need to breathe in water?” Rafael scoffs. “We don’t have a use for that.”

“You might,” Olivia points out absently. Sonny laughs when Rafael shoots her a glaring protest.

They make an appointment for Sonny to become human to see any changes that may have occurred. Although he’s not looking forward to becoming human temporarily, he knows it’s important for their research. He’s thankful they asked for his input on when it should happen instead of taking away any form of control from him. He can’t help but be thankful for them, even if they’ve only just started.

A week later, any type of thanks is gone when Sonny is writhing in the tub and yelling as the serum works through his body. There has always been a high chance that taking Temporary Resin will keep the subject unconscious and therefore unaware of the changes to their body. If it doesn’t, it is advisable that precautionary measures to ensure the safety of the individual are put into place, especially if they are a merperson. The process of removing a tail for the sake of having legs is not pretty.

Of the handful of times he’s had to use Temporary Resin, Sonny has never had the opportunity to be awake during the transformation. He had been the one to suggest that he stays awake during it, but he’s going back on that promise now as his tail burns from the inside out. His scales push out like they would if one of them breaks, but it’s from removal to conform to human anatomy instead of a healing process. And with each loss of his scales, his tailfin comes closer to dropping off.

Sonny arches his back as the top section of his tail starts to dissolve, the scales removed completely from its surface and his skin stretching down the muscle. It makes his body itchy all over, but his hands are too clenched on the outside of the tub to try and relieve it. Rafael has a hold on his arm, the only outside contact he’s aware of. If anyone else is speaking or gripping him, it’s lost to him, the pain and ache running through his veins and too powerful to think straight. When the scales on his body finish dropping off, the pain kicks up a notch as the muscle in his legs starts to separate and become two.

“You’re doing good,” Rafael assures him, his voice coming through his tortured grunts. Sonny squeezes his eyes shut and shouts as his skin slips further down and his internal anatomy splits into two. The more skin that’s formed, the more irritated it’ll become.

“I-itchy,” Sonny groans, forcing his right index finger to point to the lower half of his body.

“More water,” Rafael says to whoever’s next to him. When his voice gets closer, the tone lowers as well. “It’ll sting for a moment, but we can’t keep it on you for long, otherwise you won’t turn human.”

His tailfin finally slides off right when the muscle separates. If he focuses on his tail for much longer, Sonny will be able to feel the bones restructuring to accommodate human legs. “Wouldn’t be mad.”

“I know, I know.” A soft kiss presses on his forehead gently. “You’re doing great. You’re almost there.”

By the time the rest of his skin forms over the two separate muscles and the lower half of his body is shaped to match a human’s anatomy both internally and externally, Sonny practically passes out. He barely registers being moved onto a towel and wrapped in blankets while the researchers around him finalize their immediate observations. If they didn’t find what they were hoping to study, they don’t say anything. Rafael stays beside him throughout the whole thing, reassuring him, thanking him, and comforting him.

* * *

If there’s one positive Sonny can find with being human, it’s the opportunity to stand next to Rafael as much as he wants and as much as Rafael will allow him. He’s been a human for about two days now and has been introduced to new experiments, mostly how well his legs can move outside of walking and standing, which is more tiring than he thought but still exciting to see how much he can mimic from Mike. As painful as transforming had been, there was some progress made on Olivia’s research, including a separate tab in her files for pain management and how to avoid any suffering during the transformation process.

When he’s not working with the researchers, Sonny watches Rafael at work. He does more background work for the team than field research, mostly reviewing laws and bending them if or when they have to present their case to a court system. Sonny doesn’t understand much of it, but he still enjoys hearing Rafael talk about it. The passion that flows through him and the dedication that shines in his eyes is enticing. Even if he wasn’t biased to Rafael’s interests, Sonny would hear it just to watch him talk. But Rafael’s role has expanded to something more over the years. He keeps track of appointments with other teams that do work in the same realm as theirs, and he travels with Nick to present their information to other researchers.

His latest role comes as a surprise; Sonny and Rafael are sitting outside of the house on the water, enjoying some lunch. Sonny has been gradually introduced to hot foods and meats outside of his usual diet. Today, lunch is a Cubano, consisting of ham and cheese and some mustard on the side for him to taste between bites. Sonny’s attention, however, has drifted to the human across from him after hearing his unexpected announcement.

“You’re doing what?”

Rafael takes a bite of the sandwich and doesn’t answer until he’s finished chewing. “I’m volunteering as a test subject so we can study how humans transform into merfolk.”

Sonny blinks at the repeated words. He’s trying to wrap his head around them, trying to understand the reality of their meaning, but his mind is moving too fast to focus on it for long. Rafael resumes eating his sandwich but Sonny is still focused on the new information. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why? Why would you do that to yourself?”

“You did it,” Rafael shrugs, “among other reasons. We need a human to study their transformations. I get to spend more time with you.” He pauses, wipes his mouth, and lets out a sigh. “Should I go on?”

Sonny frowns at the slight attitude he receives. “No. But did you not see what I went through to be human? It’ll probably be close to the same experience for yours.”

“Maybe. But if it’ll help my team, I’d be happy to do it.” His eyes narrow. “I thought you’d be a little more eager.”

“I don’t want to see you get hurt. I didn’t have fun turning into this.”

“That’s why we’re trying to prevent that. What do you think we’ve been trying to do?”

Sonny looks off to the side with a disgruntled huff and stretches his legs out underneath the table. He doesn’t know how much he’ll be able to be there for Rafael when he takes the Resin to become a merman, but no matter what, he wants to be there. To think that he could leave Rafael to fend for himself, surrounded by people who will be more focused on their research instead of his distress, sends a cold chill down his spine. Sonny knows they wouldn’t do it on purpose, just like they didn’t do it on purpose when he turned human, but he also knew he would have Rafael by his side.

He knows there’s no deterring Rafael once he’s decided something. So Sonny comes to terms with it and the next day, he requests that he be there when Rafael takes the serum. It’ll be much easier for him to return to his tail than it was to remove it. And two days after that, when Rafael is experiencing his own transformation in the same shallow tub Sonny had been in, he’s thankful the others understood and had no complaints for him to stay human a little bit longer. He holds onto Rafael’s hand when his legs start to fuse and the tail begins to develop, and he tries not to focus too hard on the observations being made around him.

“I can see why sedation is heavily recommended,” Rafael grunts under his breath. Sonny just kisses the top of his head and tries not to flinch when Rafael’s grip tightens even more. He lets out a short yell and sags against the side of the tub as his skin, similar to how Sonny’s had after his scales dropped, begins to vanish. Unlike Sonny, however, once the process is complete and there’s a full tail past his waist, complete with a solid fin at the end and scales that twinkle between blue and green, Rafael stays awake. Worn out and exhausted, evident from the heavy rise and fall of his chest and the loss of energy through his body, maybe a bit lost, but awake nonetheless.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Sonny asks in a low whisper. Mike and Olivia are prepping the tub so they can easily transport it, and Rafael, into the ocean; Nick, like last time, takes pictures of Rafael’s tail for study later. Sonny will insert himself into a separate tub with water from the sea beforehand so that Olivia can finish her analysis before he returns to the sea.

Rafael shakes his head. “You’re doing enough.” A sated smile appears on his face as he weakly raises a hand to pat Sonny’s cheek. Sonny presses a kiss against his palm before leaning into the gesture. “Having you here is enough.”

The tub Sonny eases into is, thankfully, set up beside Rafael’s. The irritation that comes from returning to the water isn’t as strong as the removal of his tail had been. He feels just as itchy as before, though the water helps relieve it, especially once his scales start to form over his tail muscle. But he doesn’t feel the same pain he had endured when his legs formed. When his tail fully returns, Sonny laps at the water with his tailfin and splashes a few droplets out of the tub. Rafael’s chuckle is all he needs to hear to know he earned the reaction he wanted.

“It wasn’t as painful as before?” Olivia asks, finishing the page filled with her observation and flipping to the next to record his experience separately.

Sonny shakes his head. “Just a little stiff, but that’s it.”

Olivia gives a quiet hum. “The lack of pain might be related to the process itself. Your tail reformed to make two legs, whereas it simply returned to what it knows once you make contact with the water.” She finishes the sentence she was writing and looks up at him. “Can you tell me anything else? Any differences between areas that might have felt more pain than others?”

“The end of my tail felt funny,” he offers. Olivia nods and scribbles the observation down. “Both this time and the last time I was human, it felt like I hadn’t moved it in a while. I don’t know what you guys call it.”

“It fell asleep?”

“I think so. It was prickly at first.”

“Does it feel fine now?”

Sonny nods, demonstrating it by flicking his tailfin up and waving it at her. Olivia chuckles at the motion and asks once more for any updates before concluding for now and helping Mike and Nick move the tubs to the dock. Sonny returns to the sea first, practically diving out of the tub and into the water. He twirls a few times to get out the last stabs of discomfort before returning to the surface. Rafael hadn’t been a merman for ten years, and they were going to ease him in while still in the tub to help the transition. Sonny would help any way he could.

Mike and Nick hold onto either side of the tub and drop it into the water. Olivia, using a ladder positioned next to the tub, helps Sonny direct it down so that Rafael can slink out. As soon as he does, tail flapping after him, he vanishes underwater. He returns to the surface with a slight sputter and a shake of his head, but relatively unharmed. He’s able to stay afloat and he doesn’t seem to be in any visible pain, which is more than Sonny could ask for.

“Is that any better?” Olivia asks. Rafael nods, looking over at Sonny and smiling so gently, so shyly, Sonny nearly tackles him there and kisses him. “We’ll have meetings at dusk and dawn for the next three days, but feel free to visit during regular operating hours.”

“Are you sure I don’t have to make an appointment?” Rafael teases. Olivia’s only response is an eyeroll as she steps off the ladder and pulls it back up, the tub following suit now that it’s not of use.

Sonny waits until the three have gone inside, bidding farewell and well wishes for now, before he drifts over to Rafael. The ends of their tails brush past ever so slightly, sending a shiver down Sonny’s spine and causing a visible shudder to run through Rafael. “You’re swimming,” Sonny points out.

Rafael scoffs. “Barely. I’ve learned how to keep my head above the water and nothing else.”

Sonny reaches a hand out; Rafael entwines their fingers together with a kiss to match. “We can stay up here for a while if you need it. I know last time you did this, you weren’t aware of what was going on, so we can take it slow.”

“Mm. I appreciate that. I just…”

His hands drop to his side, and Sonny is suddenly thrown against Rafael in a tight embrace as he closes the gap between them with a sharp inhale. His arms snake around Sonny’s neck, causing a small setback in his floating but not enough to deter him completely. Sonny wraps his arms around him after a few seconds and listens to his breathing. He could fall asleep to the tune. He  _ wants _ to fall asleep to it, entranced by the melody, lulled by the rise of his chest and the easy fall that accompanies it.

“Have I ever talked about my fear of the water?”

Sonny thinks on it for a second—he can recall the brief explanation Rafael had supplied ten years ago while he was learning how to use his tail. He doesn’t say anything in response, just nods and waits for Rafael to elaborate. When he does, it’s soft and airy, almost unheard if Sonny hadn’t been paying attention.

“I was always convinced that oceans can’t be controlled. You can’t hold water in your hands without it slipping through your fingers. You can see ahead as much as it’ll allow. There’s no telling the type of life that lives here. And if there’s nothing beneath your feet when you’re standing in it, you have to work to keep your head above water. And yet…” Rafael pulls back. His eyes are a magnificent shade of jade, hardening into a deep green that captivates Sonny and holds him in place. “I’ve seen it at its most beautiful. I’ve had dreams of living down here like I’ve done it all my life. Even when I want to, I see the good in something I labeled ‘bad’ for my entire life.”

The words cut deep into Sonny, perhaps more than they should, but he ignores that fact for now. He kept humans at a curious but safe distance, always enough to examine them but never enough to get close to him. Both before and after they destroyed his home. For so long, they were a danger that always lashed out at non-human life forms: ruining the environment, ostracizing and assimilating merfolk, putting their own lives above others. But never Rafael. Even at their most hostile, an exception was always made for him. And from Rafael came an appreciation for the good in humanity: the curious, the pride, the subtlety in caring deeply without anyone knowing. Through him, Sonny examines his own biases to reestablish what he knows and reconsider old stances.

“Do you have a word for love?”

Sonny eyes him again. So honest, so green, so vivid. “Just your first name.”

Rafael kisses him like it’s the only good thing in the world. Sonny returns the gesture with the response that even though it isn’t, he doesn’t mind treating it like it is.

* * *

Sonny spots a camera in use again, but it’s not Nick taking the pictures this time. A young woman stops by two months after Rafael returns to shore as a human. She introduces herself as Kat while holding the camera in her hands. He doesn’t ask about it until he’s alone with Rafael; his boyfriend—was that the word he had used?—sits on the dock with his feet hanging over the edge while Sonny floats in front of him. As soon as Kat retreats into the house, Sonny pokes Rafael gently on the leg to get his attention.

“Do you know why she’s here?” He asks.

“Nothing specific,” Rafael shakes his head. “Only that Liv’s publications got us a lot more attention than we expected.”

The past month has involved publications, with the consent of both Sonny and Rafael, on the process of transforming between human and merperson. It was part of a journal with other people around the world who were doing just as much to lessen the bias as their group was. Sonny had Rafael read it to him in its fullest extent, showing him the pictures Nick had taken or created to accompany the observations and sharing his thoughts on the subject. It was accurate to both of their experiences, as far as Sonny could tell, and he was satisfied to see that there was a consensus reached for technology that could easily help an individual grow or remove a tail for underwater use. A bracelet was the most common suggestion between researchers, given its versatility and accessibility. According to Mike and Rafael, a prototype of the design was on its way to them for Sonny to try out.

He’s excited to see how it would work, especially with any measures taken to reduce pain management on his end. Rafael described his experience as an irritation that wore off gradually the more time he spent underwater. Sonny’s was the complete opposite for less than obvious reasons.

“Do you think she can take a picture of us?” Sonny asks.

Rafael looks at him with an amused glint in his eyes. “What for?”

“Just so I can look at you more.” He smirks when Rafael laughs and splashes some water playfully in his direction. Their time together felt easy: they couldn’t always wake up to one another, but they had regular visits and chats. Sometimes, on the days where Rafael was cooped up doing work, Sonny would leave a small gift for him at the edge of the dock, usually a shell he had found that shone the exact shade of green as his eyes. Mike and Nick had joked of expanding below them just enough so that merfolk could come to them in the event of any human-related issues that they could resolve but, also, so Sonny could spend even more time with his boyfriend—which he liked to hear. He and Rafael were boyfriends. They were partners. They were dedicated to a relationship that expanded beyond personal boundaries and lodged itself right in their hearts. But perhaps, he hopes, even if they had been joking, and even if he would use it for more personal uses, a space like that could mean a lot of good for them.

“Are you sure you’re not just trying to flatter me?” Rafael teases lightly. “I know how attractive I am, but something tells me you have ulterior motives.”

Sonny slinks under the dock so that his tail wraps around the post staked into the ground and he can look up at Rafael with a proper coy pout. “What gave you that idea?”

“Just a hunch. Would you like to prove me wrong?”

“Mm, I dunno. I like your assumptions.”

The woman, Kat, comes out of the house with Olivia, camera in both hands and already poised when they walk out. Olivia steps over to them while Kat focuses on the horizon. “Kat’s going to take some pictures while Rita gets lunch. Is there anything you two want specifically?”

“Can I try some of that soup in the bread bowl again?” Sonny suggests.

“I’ll have my usual, please,” Rafael adds.

Olivia smiles at them. “Of course.” The woman taking pictures steps over to them, fiddling with the long tube-shaped thing at the front of the camera. Sonny watches her hands work the device with intense curiosity, nearly missing her speaking to him and Rafael.

“You two were the subjects Dr. Benson’s research mentioned, right?” Kat says, already beaming when Rafael and Sonny give equal nods. “Thank you for taking the time and energy to do that. It doesn’t sound very easy, but it’s brought a lot of good.”

“We’ve heard the rumors,” Rafael hums. He had already told Sonny about the supposed activity going on with lawmakers to reverse decisions made that assimilated merfolk. But neither of them were holding their breath in the hopes that it would come to anything. Several attempts to reverse the decisions since they were enacted have come up and failed for ten years. This could be no different.

“What are you taking pictures for?” Sonny asks.

“I’m a journalist for the New York Publisher,” Kat explains. “Our work reaches both humans and merfolk, and we elected to be the first group to report on Dr. Benson’s team and the strides she’s making.”

“The interview is tomorrow,” Olivia says, giving a pointed look to Rafael, who barely bats an eye at the attempted jab, “but we invited Kat over today to see everything first before we started anything.”

“It sounds lovely,” Rafael states, with a genuine smile to boot. “If you need us to move so you can get the perfect shot, we’d be happy to.”

Kat shakes her head. “You two are perfect where you are! I hope you don’t mind if you end up getting your pictures taken.”

“Only if we get copies,” Sonny suggests. Rafael splashes him again.

Olivia and Kat share a few words before they part, Olivia returning inside and Kat rounding the sides of the house for a different shot. Rafael, now that they’re alone, holds a hand out for Sonny to take. “Any plans for today?” He asks, his smile growing when Sonny pecks the top. “Gina should be returning soon from her trip to the Mediterranean, right?”

Sonny nods. “Two days. She’s excited to see you again.”

“The feeling’s mutual. I always felt like I never thanked her enough.”

“Maybe Rita can meet her too? Gina brought it up.”

“That’d be nice. For all her moaning about me falling into the water, she was incredibly thankful that you and your family were there to help me.”

Sonny smirks at that, swimming out from under the dock to look at him. “Are you sure you’re not the one hiding your true feelings?”

Rafael huffs and changes position so he’s laying on his stomach. “Yes.”

“I mean, you two do like each other—”

“That’s to an extreme extent. Watch it, Sonny, you know I can swim without a tail now.”

Sonny just shrugs. “I’ve never seen it.”

“You two make for an unlikely friendship,” Kat suddenly says. Her camera hangs from a strap around her neck., untouched for now.

Rafael and Sonny share a look. The encouraged flexibility of merfolk when it came to attraction and partnerships was not an issue for Rafael, who already didn’t use the labels humans typically did. There was a non-verbal agreement between them that unless explicitly asked by another, they wouldn’t reveal details that may be invasive of themselves and their relationship.

“Thank you,” Rafael settles for saying. Sonny watches the sunlight curve down the slope of his nose, and a burst of fondness flows through him when Rafael looks at him and smiles. They reach a mutual agreement at the same time and without saying anything: they don’t need to tell everyone. Sometimes, some things can remain unsaid. At the end of the day, they know exactly how the other feels about them, and that’s all that matters.

Kat’s pictures circulate quickly once they’re published in the newspaper she works for. The ones of the facility are of note, of course, but it’s the ones with Rafael and Sonny looking at one another that catches the public eye at a larger scale than they imagined. When Kat sent them the pictures she would be using, once she had their approval, Sonny was thrilled to have a photo of him and Rafael in a natural setting. He and Rafael had already given her permission to use it, but to see it in a final draft before being sent for publication was almost surreal.

The picture captures them right after Rafael had stretched out on his stomach. Sonny is looking at Rafael with his usual bright smile, eyes shining and the dimples in his cheeks measuring the pure love and adoration he holds for the human. He loved to joke that the deeper the dimples were, the more obvious his love for Rafael became. Everything about him, from the way he looks at his partner to the reaches of his smile, demands attention—look at him, a merman, and look at him, a human, fallen in love and more than content with the fact. They’re happy about it. They celebrate it. Despite their different species, they connected on a level far more personal than anyone could imagine. And for each hardship and victory they’ve faced together, Sonny makes it clear that they love each other, no matter what, and despite all that might be said of them.

But Rafael, in Sonny’s earnest opinion, is the true star of the photo: the tenderness that radiates from him, the way the light bounces off the water and reflects into his eyes to make them more vivid and expressive than before, the energy stretching off him in small tendrils that are loud and demand immediate attention. His chin resting on his hands, his smile small but just as loud as Sonny’s beam, and his eyes burst with unspoken love and trust that indicate a deep connection between them. Rafael had a clear talent for speaking and using words in ways no one else seemed to do. But the message he could send with a glance, a small curve of his lips or nod of his head, was just as powerful. And the duality of it sends Sonny into a tailspin, flipping around when he finally sees the publication in its full form and kissing as much of Rafael as he can reach.

Sonny and Rafael love each other. They don’t need words to say it, although they do enjoy it. And regardless of what others may have to say about them, they thrive on one another’s dedication and brevity and love.

* * *

They have done it.

Three months after Kat releases her article, complete with Olivia’s full interview and accompanied by the pictures she had taken, and they finally have the technology that allows humans and merfolk to cross paths more easily. A simple bracelet holds the answers: with a single press of a button, the Temporary Resin—now formulated to be administered by touch instead of injection—is released from the bracelet. By touching skin, the natural chemicals in the formula temporarily interfere with a person’s genetics so that they can be human or merperson. To change back, a similar latch must be released to “erase” the interference and remove it from the body and back into the bracelet. If used regularly, it’s recommended to have both serums replaced every other month to avoid any complications with changing between or staying as one species.

At a convention, as Sonny reads when the team of researchers he’s come to be close to over the months leave to present their research and achievements with other groups, the bracelet is compared to a cap of sorts: the Resin released will change the DNA as desired, covering the original to alter the series, and when retracted, the physical form can return to its original state as if nothing had happened. For merfolk, much like taking a serum, any contact with the body of water they live in will revert them to their tails as soon as the latch holding the “antidote” is released. Humans, to have their legs return, will have to be sitting out of the water with the antidote administered for it to be effective.

It isn’t perfect—there are still questions on nudity, seeing as merfolk don’t wear clothes, and humans returning to their legs will have to deal with not being clothed once they have their legs back; they have yet to gather just how long a human or merperson can stay as the opposite species. Additionally, since merfolk are more lenient on identities about sex and gender, there comes the question of how to acquaint merfolk with these human ideas, especially sex. Merfolk reproduction has been compared to aquatic mammals, albeit more adjusted for human behaviors, but still requires attention nonetheless.

Sonny and Rafael volunteer themselves once again for testing and conclude that thirty days is the limit for how long they can stay as the opposite species. They might be able to go longer, but complications started to rise past that point, particularly regular joint pains for Sonny and problems with Rafael’s lungs filtering water. Either way, neither of them minds the almost excessive but definitely thorough research when it means they can spend much more time together than they might have anticipated.

Especially when it allows them to fall in love even more and have more time for themselves. Sonny loves to spend time with Rafael doing mundane things, like learning how to cook, or trying out a camera, just as much as Rafael loves floating on his back and twirling around Sonny, always glad to flick his tail to either send a swarm of bubbles in his face or show off the teal shine of his scales. Once the research is complete and the bracelet is officially put into use for the public, this will be their life. Flipping between mermen and humans to spend time where the other is most comfortable. Some say it’s a sign of just how much they love each other. And as much as that may be true, Sonny believes it’s only natural that these things happen this way.

* * *

Gina and Sonny are gathering shells along the bottom of the ocean, a few miles off of the consultant’s station, when Rafael comes up behind them. Sonny had anticipated his arrival and made sure to keep an eye on the shells he was interested in. He could take them as the chosen ones for the pendant he would be making to signify his request of having an eternal bond with Rafael, just so they were safe, but finding them was part of the fun. And if he couldn’t come back to the ones he wanted to put together a pendant for Rafael, they weren’t meant to be part of it in the first place.

“Teresa said you two would be out here,” Rafael chides softly. He dips under them so he can float in front of Sonny and peck his cheek in greeting. “What’re you two up to?”

“Looking for some mollusks to teach the youngsters,” Gina says. It wasn’t a flat-out lie—she was taking time from traveling to help out around the city, and educating others was her forte. She shows him the collection they’ve accrued over the hour or so they’ve already spent shell searching. “Elder Cara said I had too many shells from other ecosystems, so I have to find some from ours to talk about.”

“It’s a fair point,” Sonny says. “You should have shells from all over.”

Gina rolls her eyes. “I do, but we’ve all seen these shells before! Why should I tell them what they probably already know?”

Rafael chuckles. “I’m sure you can find a way to make it fun. You could have the kids find them, like a scavenger hunt.”

Gina’s eyes light up in interest, and she bows her head in deep thought. “Not a bad idea. I wouldn’t have to do a lot of work.”

“But you just did—” Sonny tries to argue, but his sister cuts him off.

“Nope! I think I’ll let them do the rest, thanks.” She starts to return to the city but stops and turns back to hug Rafael. He jumps a bit, startled by the breach of personal space, but still pats her on the back. “Thanks for the suggestion. Humans really do have the best ideas.”

“That last part might be a stretch,” Rafael says, “but I appreciate the sentiment.”

Gina pulls away and eyes Sonny. Her next words do not match the glint in her eyes. “Are you staying here, Sonny?”

“I think I’ll head over to the consultants and see if I can help,” he answers. Gina raises a brow, and his stare hardens. “If you’re leaving, I don’t have anything else to do here.” He can chew her out later for trying to get him to reveal his surprise.

Gina sighs dramatically and shakes her head, blonde locks stretching out every which way. “Fine. Just let me know when you’re back. I wanna hide the shells I already have around the city.”

Sonny sighs as she swims off, leaving him and Rafael alone in the plain of abandoned shells. “You know what, I’m happy she has something to keep her occupied.”

Rafael laughs. “It looks to me like she’s still bothering you though.” They start to swim in the direction of the consultants’ station, set up just outside of the headquarters for Olivia’s research team. There were a few appointments that would require a merperson’s assistance, and since Rafael is already in the ocean, he’s a viable option to lend a hand. Sonny spends most of his time there anyway, now that the city has been all but completely rebuilt, so it works out for them.

“It’s Gina,” Sonny shrugs. “She would find a way to bother her reflection.”

“I’m surprised she hasn’t tried it already.” Rafael dips down just slightly to reach out and pick up a shell. It was one Sonny had had his eyes on, but he hadn’t made it this far in his search over the plain. The folds and cuts on the shell are perfectly symmetrical to either side; it’s a pretty purple that Sonny knows is the same shade Rafael loves. He’s seen it on his clothes more than enough to know he adores the shade. “This looks nice. Maybe she can use it.”

Sonny holds out his hand so he can examine it better. There’s a small groove ingrained in the shell’s surface, and on the other side, it’s clear that it was removed with some force. The end of it is a bit torn, a little too sharp, but it’s nothing a few rubs against stone or an empty oyster shell to even it out. “It’s pretty. Your favorite color,” he adds, holding the 

Rafael smiles and looks away. “You say that about every color.”

“No! You love purple!” Sonny swims in front of him, scales shining against Rafael’s as he does. They always made such pretty colors together, a perfect combo of rich oranges and vibrant greens. If Sonny could put that on a shell, he absolutely would. “All of your best clothes are purple.”

“Not true,” Rafael shakes his head. “My blue suit.”

“It’s so dark, it may as well be purple.”

Rafael gives a mock gasp and shoves Sonny, who laughs at the offended glare fired at him. “If I didn’t love you so much, I would commit you to a three-day lecture on the importance of color theory.”

Sonny sidles up beside him and locks their elbows together. He holds out the shell at just the right angle to see it align with Rafael’s collarbone. Perfect. “I would listen to it because I love you.”

Rafael takes the shell and smirks. “Do you? I don’t think you’ve told me this hour. Mind enlightening me?”

Sonny laughs; he’s learned so many different ways to tell Rafael just how much he loves him. If only he knew where to start.


End file.
